"There's no place like this place… anyplace." That's one of the many slogans hand-painted on the facades of Honest Ed's; and the plans to redevelop the discount store, and the adjacent group of buildings called Mirvish Village, will live up to that slogan in ways Ed Mirvish wouldn't have expected.

On Tuesday night, the developer that owns the 1.8-hectare downtown Toronto site, Westbank, and its architect, Vancouver's Gregory Henriquez, presented their plans at a public open house. While the project's design is in flux, the plans include several surprises: 1,000 rental apartments, many of them family-sized, and no condominiums for sale; a permanent public market; and retail space largely divided into small units that mimic the scale of existing storefronts on Bloor Street.

The proposal builds on the promises the design team made last fall. It would bring to Toronto a new and complex brand of urbanism, raising the standards on many fronts, from heritage to sustainability to cycling and, crucially, urban design.