Great little article featured in Insidetoronto.com talking about how young families are buying real estate in the South Etobicoke area. It's proximity to the lake, trails and downtown Toronto are the keys reasons they love this area so much.
AT ISSUE: Lakeshore's new generation moves in.
New to the Lakeshore neighborhood is Jimmie Lee and family, wife Melissa, children six-month old Rianne and three-year old Ava. Little Ava Lee is busy making snake soup from her plastic coloured balls.
It's heady Saturday afternoon fun for the talkative three-year-old.
Ava and her then-unborn, now six-month-old baby sister, Rianne, moved with their parents Melissa, 31 and Jimmie, 36, into their New Toronto red brick two-storey home eight months ago.
Their family poised to grow last summer, the Lees started house-hunting in lakefront Etobicoke. It was familiar territory. Years earlier, the young couple had hunted real estate on the very same streets. They loved its proximity to the lake, nature trails and downtown Toronto where they both work.
At the time, they'd happened to find their first home in a Danforth-Woodbine avenues' neighbourhood.
But they never forgot the tidy homes on large lots on quiet, leafy residential streets less than a 10-minute walk to the lake in Etobicoke.
"We knew this is exactly where we wanted to be," Jimmie says of their Eleventh Street neighbourhood. "We knew we wanted to live on a numbered street south of the Lakeshore...It was very, very important to us that our girls experience the wonder of living so close to the lake."
Their well-maintained New Toronto home had one owner for the past 60 years. It's the story of many Lakeshore-area families. They live in their homes for decades, often for generations.
"We've only been here six months and we know we want to be here for 20 years," Jimmie says. "We recognize the area's potential."
Future transformation of The Lakeshore excites the young couple.
Their thoughts instinctively turn to their two young daughters and the life they envision living as a young family in the neighbourhood.
Once a week, a High Park friend of Melissa's visits with her baby. The moms tote their tots in strollers to Sweet Olenka's chocolate and ice cream shop for a cup of locally renowned Birds and Beans organic coffee.
It's one of few stroller-friendly coffee shops in the area, Melissa reports.
She is keen to see a Starbucks or Second Cup open in the neighbourhood.
"I think there's a lot of potential for the area. I research a lot online for groups and things to do," she says.
Most parks in the area are large, but their play structures small and old, the couple reports.
While lakefront Rotary Park and Rotary Pool is at the foot of their street, it doesn't boast the play groups and parent-supplied sandbox toys of the couple's former east-end neighbourhood park.
"It doesn't even have a park bench, which I found out when I was pregnant last summer and needed to sit down," she says. "It's sad to see the park not being used. The splash pad operated once last year, then it was closed all summer."
Melissa and Ava had a similarly discouraging experience when they visited New Toronto Public Library up the street.
There is no children's centre in the library. Twice, its baby program was cancelled although she recently enrolled Rianne, Melissa reports.
"When we went up to the library, Ava asked: 'Where are all the toys? I want to go home.'"
"Maybe they hide," Ava tells her Mom.
The Lees laud City of Toronto's programs as "excellent value for the cost." They'd just like to see more children and family-focused programs in the area.
The couple regularly heads to Lake Shore Boulevard West for meat from The Village Butcher and dinner at Lee's Thai Spring Roll. Recently, Melissa ordered loot bags online for Ava's third birthday party from The Loot Lady just up the street.
They envision grocers, florists, cheerful boutique restaurants, furnishing stores, family service retailers and athletic stores along the stretch of Lake Shore Boulevard West from Kipling Avenue to Royal York Road.
"Think of Bayview Avenue between Moore and Eglinton; Yonge Street from Eglinton to Lawrence or even closer to home, Bloor Street West between Islington and Royal York as a couple of goals to aspire to," Jimmie says.
Rianne down for a nap, Jimmie readies Ava for her first Leafs' game that night.
"I'm going to the hockey game!" Ava gushes, running upstairs to her bedroom to fetch her tiny grey T-shirt emblazoned with a bright pink maple leaf and the words Toronto Maple Leafs.
"What do we say at the game?" Jimmie asks his toddler.
"Go, Leafs, go!" Ava squeals.
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