November 15, 2010
South Unionville Square [map], a residential, office and commercial condominium project, is well under construction in Markham.
Mady Development Corp. is taking the concept of multi-use development to the max, and all available space (retail, office and residential) will be condominium units.
The project will be 6.57 acres: a 300,000 sq. ft, two-level shopping mall (with 300 stores!), 80,000 sq.ft. of office space; the residential component will feature a 12-storey tower with 253 units as well as a row of townhomes at the rear of the development.Originally, the tower was supposed to be 8 storeys high, but an additional 4 floors were recently added.
Here is the site as it looked last week. Eventually 30,000 cubic metres of concrete will be poured, with approximately 10,000 poured to date– a typical detached home requires 150 cubic metres – YIKES!
Currently there are 120 construction workers on site, and they have already excavated 140,000 cubic meters of dirt, and pumped 200 million litres of water. Holy!
This section of the site will contain the residential component and construction on the tower will be complete in the summer of 2012. The commercial section will be complete at the end of 2011. 
The entire site will eventually have seven acres of underground parking, or 1700 spaces. Two levels of parking will be complete prior to construction on the tower.
Mady has made an effort to appeal to the large ethnic-Chinese community in Markham, and the design of the site really reflects Asian styles of integrated space, and is a great step for urban planning in southern Ontario.
One of the main draws for the residential units was the fact that purchasers would only have a short distance to walk to do their grocery run, grab a coffee, or go shopping – a convenience that is new to an area such as Markham.
With such a large commercial area only a stones throw away, people won’t have to hop in their car anymore. The power of this convenience should never be under-estimated — we were told that the new T&T Supermarket–an Asian food chain that was recently bought by Loblaws–was a deciding factor in several purchasing decisions!
South Unionville Square will be a very interesting project to watch, and hopefully other developers will follow it too!
