Eva's Phoenix youth shelter will be moving from its home on Ordnance Street to a city property at 500 Adelaide Street West near Spadina Avenue, after officials at Build Toronto came back with an acceptable proposal to deal with the shelter.
Council approved the plan at its November meeting, just weeks after the city's Government Management Committee had rejected a Build Toronto Plan that Eva's Phoenix board members said was unacceptable.The shelter is leasing city-owned land at King and Bathurst streets, and the city has been attempting to sell that land to a developer looking to build condominium towers nearby.But the original plan to relocate the shelter wasn't acceptable, with the board of directors of the shelter saying that Build Toronto hadn't provided adequate funding to build or retrofit the new facilities.The deal arrived at appears to meet the conditions, with Eva's Phoenix getting a portion of a city-owned property at 500 Adelaide. The city will be providing parent organization Eva's Place with $5 million to retrofit the facility, including building a print shop and a commercial kitchen to help the young people who stay there with vocational training."It's an old city warehouse building and the warehouse will be moving out of it," said Willowdale Councillor David Shiner, who championed the shelter at the city. "We'll be moving in a print shop they've made and will also put in a commercial kitchen training centre."Shiner has been a major supporter of Eva's Phoenix. "The youth that go in there don't go out on the street, they become productive members of our society," he said.The deal will see the city make $30 million for the sale of the Ordnance Street property where Eva's Phoenix is now, and will also allow the city to make $10 million selling another portion of the Richmond Street property.