cityscape Making and Remaking Hazelton Lanes

Hazelton Lanes, Yorkville's once-glamorous shopping mall, has fallen on hard times—but a planned facelift could give it new life.

SHOW CAPTION  ✉ Share on:  272216 Rendering of a proposed new Avenue Road entrance for Hazelton Lanes. Image courtesy of Hazelton Lanes. 20130823nightview https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130823nightview-100x100.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130823nightview.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130823nightview.jpg 1024 442 https://torontoist.com/2013/08/making-and-remaking-hazelton-lanes/slide/20130823nightview/ 20130823nightview 0 0 272215 Rendering of Hazelton Lanes's proposed new Avenue Road frontage, including the tower at 140 Yorkville Avenue that would replace York Square. Image courtesy of Hazelton Lanes. 20130823avenueroad https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130823avenueroad-100x100.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130823avenueroad.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130823avenueroad.jpg 1024 234 https://torontoist.com/2013/08/making-and-remaking-hazelton-lanes/slide/20130823avenueroad/ 20130823avenueroad 0 0 272214 Rendering of some proposed new retail space for Hazelton Lanes. Image courtesy of Hazelton Lanes. 20130823viewd https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130823viewd-100x100.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130823viewd.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130823viewd.jpg 1024 569 https://torontoist.com/2013/08/making-and-remaking-hazelton-lanes/slide/20130823viewd/ 20130823viewd 0 0 272213 Rendering of some proposed new escalators for Hazelton Lanes. Image courtesy of Hazelton Lanes. 20130823viewc https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130823viewc-100x100.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130823viewc.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130823viewc.jpg 1024 577 https://torontoist.com/2013/08/making-and-remaking-hazelton-lanes/slide/20130823viewc/ 20130823viewc 0 0 272217 Hazelton Lanes, Avenue Road frontage, between 1989 and 1998. City of Toronto Archives, Series 1465, File 101, Item 2. 20130823archivalpic https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130823archivalpic-100x100.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130823archivalpic.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130823archivalpic.jpg 640 425 https://torontoist.com/2013/08/making-and-remaking-hazelton-lanes/slide/20130823archivalpic/ 20130823archivalpic 0 0 272089 Advertisement, the <em>Globe and Mail</em>, September 25, 1976. 20130823openingad https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130823openingad-100x100.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130823openingad.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130823openingad.jpg 640 705 https://torontoist.com/2013/08/making-and-remaking-hazelton-lanes/slide/20130823openingad/ 20130823openingad 0 0 272109 Advertisement, <em>Toronto Life</em>, December 1984. 20130823ad84 https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130823ad84-100x100.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130823ad84.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/20130823ad84.jpg 640 872 https://torontoist.com/2013/08/making-and-remaking-hazelton-lanes/slide/20130823ad84/ 20130823ad84 0 0



When it opened in 1976, Hazelton Lanes offered a combination of luxury condos and tony retailers set amidst a cluster of former homes. Hailed as a great example of how developers and surrounding residents could work together, the mall’s fortunes later declined because of its confusing layout and an ill-timed expansion. Recently released renderings of proposed renovations depict a 21st-century makeover that the complex’s owners hope will draw foot traffic.

Hazelton Lanes’s roots can be traced to real estate developer Richard Wookey’s decision to purchase a number of Yorkville properties during the late 1960s. For a time, he catered to the counter culture. In one instance, he allowed a biker gang to use a Hazelton Avenue property as long as it didn’t bother the neighbours. The gang soon departed, complaining that Wookey had “domesticated” them.

Domestication was the goal of developers like Wookey, and boarding houses and coffee houses gave way to pricey boutiques. Wookey bought homes cheap, gutted the interiors, and added Victorian-style archways and windows. He was a proponent of adaptive reuse, hiring architects Jack Diamond and Barton Myers to transform a cluster of houses at Avenue Road and Yorkville Avenue into the York Square retail complex in 1968.

With Hazelton Lanes, Wookey did something unusual. Rather than seeking immediate City approval, he consulted local residents. Three members of the Avenue-Bay-Cottingham Ratepayers’ Association (ABCRA) were invited to his home to review the plans. Despite having concerns about increased traffic, they were impressed by the sketches and suggested that Wookey hold a public meeting. “I think that Mr. Wookey has gone about this matter in precisely the right way,” ABCRA member Jack Granatstein wrote to aldermen William Kilbourn and Colin Vaughan in a March 1973 letter. “I hope that what we can all accomplish here will become the model for future development in the city.”

When the meeting was held the following month, most of the 120 people present voted in favour of the project. “Ratepayer groups don’t always oppose development,” ABCRA vice-president Ellen Adams told the Globe and Mail. “We just oppose the bad ones.” Also impressed by the meeting was Vaughan, who a quarter century later praised Wookey for ensuring that his projects were “woven into the fabric of the city, so that older buildings and site features are enhanced.” The consultation process helped the project gain council support for an exemption to a bylaw that capped development height at 45 feet.

Designed by architect Boris Zerafa, the complex consisted of a series of eight former homes topped by a series of terraced condos. In the middle was a courtyard, which would be used as an ice-skating rink in the winter.

A potential roadblock emerged when Ursula Foster, who resisted attempts by Wookey to buy her home at 30 Hazelton, asked the City’s buildings and development committee to delay submitting the project to the Ontario Municipal Board. Foster, who had lived in Yorkville for 50 years, feared her sunlight would be blocked, and that therefore her garden would be ruined and her winter heating bill would rise. She met with the City’s planners, Wookey, and Zerafa in May 1974 to find a solution. All agreed to a revised plan that would move the complex’s first two storeys back 10 feet and relocate the upper-level condos to the Avenue Road side.

Apart from gripes from alderman John Sewell about the “very chi chi” project’s lack of affordable housing (condo prices initially ranged from $72,000 to $500,000), the remaining approval process was smooth. When the mall opened in October 1976, it was clear that the average Joe would be out of place. “Most of the shoppers have dressed up to walk the stores,” observed the Globe and Mail. “Several of the shop owners, exquisite in cashmere and costly boots, look like they would eat you alive if you wandered in wearing your old trousers.”

Under numerous owners—including William Louis-Dreyfus, father of Seinfeld actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus—the mall portion of Hazelton Lanes has had problems. A major north-end expansion in 1989 designed by Jack Diamond was affected by the recession. At desperate moments, rents were slashed in half. Existing tenants moaned about having to help customers negotiate the mall’s confusing layout. None of the marquee names touted as potential anchors during the 1990s—Neiman Marcus, Pusateri’s, Saks Fifth Avenue—materialized. The ice rink was scrapped during the late 1990s. Whole Foods opened its first Canadian store inside Hazelton Lanes in May 2002, but the mall continued to be criticized for its vacancies and its aging appearance. “Though this dreary complex has somehow managed to become synonymous with wealth and beauty,” observed Star architecture critic Christopher Hume in 2004, “it’s really about kitsch.”

Current owner First Capital bought Hazelton Lanes in 2011, promising to add a broader assortment of tenants for the mall’s well-heeled customers. A company official admitted that there was “no easy fix.” The current renderings by Kasian Architecture show a mall whose appearance matches current shopping-centre styles, with a new gateway to Yorkville Avenue. The proposed renovations, which have yet to get underway, appear to tie into plans to replace York Square with a condo tower, wiping out the pioneering retail space. It remains to be seen if a revamped Hazelton Lanes can draw a major new anchor store.

Additional material from the April 5, 1973, November 4, 1976, and September 27, 2011 editions of the Globe and Mail, and the April 5, 1973, March 22, 1974, May 14, 1974, March 11, 1976, July 20, 1998, October 5, 2002, and March 27, 2004 editions of the Toronto Star.