Oshawa’s Forgotten First Avenue

It is called First Avenue in the City of Oshawa’s official documents but it sits forlorn and forgotten and a far cry from first in the hearts of the greater business community and Oshawa planners.

The stretch of First Avenue from Simcoe Street to the end of the old Knob Hill Farms property at Howard Street – actually, that’s the entire road as it changes name as it heads east – would be more appropriately called a ghost avenue, as there’s nothing there but old memories at the moment.

That’s a shame. It’s also number one on my list of places in Oshawa where the City should be stepping up their game to make some positive changes.

The street’s decline started 13 years ago when the Knob Hill Farms Food Terminal, owned by then-Leafs owner Steve Stavro – the man who said no to Wayne Gretzky finishing his career in Toronto – shut down.

The abandoned Knob Hill Farms site on First Avenue

Built on the site of an iron foundry that had been operating since the 1870s, and billed as the ‘world’s largest food store’ when it opened in 1983, the massive 226,000 sq. ft. food terminal (which also housed a pharmacy, bakery, dentist's office, video rental store, and other retailers) was a major shopping destination for Durham Region and beyond for its entire existence.

But in 2000, with Stavro facing huge losses from new competitors like Costco, he shut all 10 terminals down. His divested his stake in the hockey team three years later and died in 2006 of a heart attack.

The Oshawa site became a liquidation outlet and a flea market for a while but has been vacant –and a crumbling, weedy eyesore - for years.

The next to go was the glass factory across the street in 2009. There had been a glass factory on the site since the 1920s and the plant employed about 160 people making windshields for the auto industry when Pittsburgh Glass Works bought the place and, after waiting a couple of months for the dust to settle and the cheques to clear, said see ya, we’re shutting you down.

Nice.

Known as the K-Mart Plaza before converting
to Zellers and eventually closing for good

The plaza, located at the corner of Simcoe and First, was the next to feel the pinch. Never an upscale shopping destination, the K-Mart Plaza – later called Zellers Plaza when K-Mart’s Canadian operations were purchased by Hudson Bay Corp. (HBC) in 1998 – was nonetheless a busy place before the economic downturn and job losses happening down the street began to take effect.

Swiss Chalet was the first major tenant to go, leaving for parts west on Stevenson Road in 2009. But the big blow came when Target blew into town, took a look at the Zellers stores in Oshawa, and turned their nose up at Simcoe and First.

We would have called the place ‘Target Plaza’ just for you, Target Corp. We really would have.

The Five Points Mall Zellers made the conversion to Target; the Townline store became a Wal-Mart; and the Oshawa Centre location was assumed by mall owners Ivanhoe Cambridge, who promptly announced plans for a major mall expansion.

The store at Simcoe and First was deemed to be a “less desirable” location by Target and was left to wither away by HBC until the lease expired in March.

It is now closed, as is every store in the plaza save one. And that store, a Furniture Mart, has liquidation sale signs plastered on every square inch of window space.

The plaza, which is the first thing you see on Simcoe Street (Oshawa’s main north-south thoroughfare) as you drive north from Hwy 401, is officially dead. Life support will not help this place and an intervention is out of the question. It needs a resurrection.

The GO Trains are coming! We hope ...

Oshawa thought they had the solution to all that ails the plaza and the neighbourhood a couple of years ago when Metrolinx, the company that operates GO Transit, announced plans for a major expansion into Oshawa and Clarington.

The project included three new stations in Oshawa – including one at the Knob Hill Farms site – and city planners and area residents were ready to dance in the streets and sing hallelujah.

But not so fast for poor First Avenue, which has been kicked in the head enough times to know not to get its hopes up. Metrolinx, citing environmental concerns and a disagreement over the purchase price for the lands, pulled the plug on the deal – taking the City completely by surprise – in late 2011.

Metrolinx’ reasoning for its sudden lack of interest in the site seem odd at the very least. Price can always be negotiated and it is unclear how a food terminal could operate on former foundry lands for so many years and yet environmental site remediation costs (not to mention liability costs) would be deemed too pricey to operate a train station at the same location.

First Avenue is still waiting to be amazed

The end result is that (of course) First Avenue had been rejected once again, unloved and unwanted.

A 2009 City report identified the site as the best option for a central train station in Oshawa, noting that a station there “could be a significant catalyst for growth, intensification and redevelopment in and around the downtown and Simcoe Street South areas.”

No kidding.

About the only good news for the neighbourhood is happening across the street on the Pittsburgh Glass site, which has seen some activity as the buildings are being prepared as the possible future home of a flea market.

Not exactly hallelujah news but at least nobody’s singing First Avenue’s eulogy.

Yet.