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City is buying up 2 more properties that it needs for BRT:

-30 Wellington Rd. for $200,000 (it's a 4,445 sq ft property)

-251 Wellington Rd. (4,290 sq ft) for $195,000#LdnOnt — Megan Stacey (@MeganatLFPress) April 10, 2018

A portion of the property at South and Colborne streets, where the old Victoria Hospital used to sit, was bought by Toronto-based Medallion Corporation and is slated for two apartment towers.

The city plans to link those lands to the riverfront with an extension of the Thames Valley Parkway, emphasizing green space and parkland in a “corridor” along South Street.

Usher sees the riverfront boardwalk proposed in the winning Back to the River design as key to making SoHo a destination for Londoners. The Ribbon of the Thames vision, crafted by a landscape architecture firm, won the river redesign contest run by the London Community Foundation in 2015. But the price tag was steep – $8 million.

The city has a little more than $2.6 million budgeted for the SoHo corridor, including the $300,000 contract awarded Tuesday.

Andrew Macpherson, the city’s manager of environmental and parks planning, said bringing multiple projects to the finish line, and linking them together, could turn the area into “a focal point.”

“All of these pieces are going to come together, fairly soon, (into) some pretty nice enhancements along the riverfront and new developments,” he said. The apartment towers – Medallion also plans to restore a century-old hospital building as part of the development – would turn the face of the SoHo neighbourhood “back to the river,” Macpherson said.

The contract, awarded to Dillon Consulting, includes community consultation and detailed designs, to be completed over the next two years. Construction could start as early as 2020.

“This is all connected,” city planner John Fleming said.

“The work that we do here will connect with the work at the forks (of the Thames) and the entire Thames Valley corridor. People can think of this as one more pearl amongst a string of great places along the river.”

mstacey@postmedia.com