This old London pub could soon be demolished to make way for apartments

Kate Dubinski · CBC News

· Posted: Nov 07, 2025 8:24 AM EST | Last Updated: 3 hours ago

A connection to demolish an aged London pub to marque mode for 2 flat buildings and a caller edifice is getting a lukewarm reception from metropolis staff, but the councillor for the country and the caput of a concern radical accidental the improvement should spell ahead.

North Development Corp. wants to physique connected the onshore that present houses Crossings Pub, astatine 1269 Hyde Park Road, betwixt Sarnia and Gainsborogh roads.

"It's a beauteous breathtaking task for London," said institution president Paul Weigel. "It's a comparatively undeveloped portion of spot with an accidental for intensification."

City councillors volition get their archetypal accidental to look astatine the connection connected Wednesday astatine the readying and situation committee. Staff person recommended they cull the developer's request, successful portion due to the fact that of the practice aspects of Crossings and due to the fact that the 2 projected apartments are 7 storeys higher than the allowed magnitude successful The London Plan.

But Ward 8 Coun. Steve Lehman said neither of those are insurmountable obstacles.

The developer's rendering of what the tract astatine 1269 Hyde Park Road could look like, with 2 towers and a restaurant. (Suuplied by North Development Inc. )

The Crossings building, constructed sometime astir the precocious 1800s, is connected the city's database of much than 2,000 practice properties, but volition beryllium removed nether authorities passed successful 2022, Lehman said.

The 2022 authorities was passed to summation Ontario's lodging supply. "This gathering didn't conscionable six of the 9 checkpoints that our practice folks usage to find practice designation," Lehman said.

The 2 apartments connected the tract would beryllium 15 storeys tall, much than the 7 allowed successful that portion of London, but is unsocial due to the fact that it is close by railroad tracks and adjacent to commercialized areas and market stores, Lehman said.

"My fearfulness is that this spot mightiness not beryllium arsenic desired for aboriginal development, truthful I'm pleased to spot that it's being considered now," helium added.

The redevelopment besides includes a walkway down the gathering that would nexus the tract to existing neighbourhoods, arsenic good arsenic 511 underground and ground-level parking.

The 2 flat buildings would person 503 residential units arsenic good arsenic abstraction astatine thoroughfare level that would let a concern to run and an attached residential portion supra it for the owner, Weigel said.

Donna Szpakowski is the caput of the Hyde Park Business Improvement Association. (Kate Dubinski/CBC)

"The density we're proposing is precise successful enactment with the provincial argumentation statements and the provincial readying act, truthful I deliberation the question we truly privation to inquire the metropolis is, does this program conscionable the aboriginal absorption we privation for London and for Hyde Park, and is that density going to beryllium beneficial. We judge that it is," helium said.

"It's connected a transit corridor, and it's precise underdeveloped. In reality, London does request much housing, and it specifically needs much attainable lodging that this volition province," Weigel said. "There's a batch of wins."

The connection is exciting, said Donna Szpakowski, the caput of the Hyde Park BIA. "Driving on that agelong of Hyde Park Road, there's a batch of residential going up — immoderate precocious density and a small spot of little density. It's a bustling portion of London with a batch of large vigor arsenic we grow."

The nationalist tin measurement successful connected the projected improvement connected Wednesday.