Progress fleeting on future GO station on Oshawa’s First Avenue

It’s been more than a dozen years since plans were first made to turn the old Knob Hill Farms site into a new Central Oshawa GO station. Eleven years since the land was expropriated after negotiations with the landowner went nowhere. And eight years since Metrolinx and the former provincial government finally announced they would be building the new station, along with three others, to extend train service all the way to Bowmanville.

It was all going to be done by 2024, too.

We all know that’s not going to happen and the actual time frame to get the new stations built and service to Clarington is still a mystery, though it appears to be 2027/2028 at the earliest.

But progress on the project is illusive, at best.

Metrolinx announced work to stabilize and preserve part of the property – the location of an iron factory dating back 127 years – in June, while declaring the rest of the structure – home to what was once Ontario’s largest grocery store when it opened in 1983 – would be demolished.

Specialized crews mobilized this summer to begin the preservation and structural rehabilitation of the heritage component, a two-storey redbrick façade from an 1897 re-build of the Ontario Malleable factory.

Demolition of the rest of the structure (the main warehouse building and generator room) would follow, while continuing additional preservation activities of other heritage elements, which included structural rehabilitation and mothballing of the heritage component in its entirety.

Today, the entire structure appears untouched and there is no evidence of any work being done, save for some scaffolding on the west side.

“As far as I can tell everything is on schedule,” said local councillor and former mayor John Gray, who said the city is still working on the final touches of a major transit study for the area. “Maybe they’ll make their deadline, maybe they won’t.”

“I don’t think anyone’s going to go to Metrolinx if they want something done promptly,” he added dryly, citing the much-delayed Eglinton Crosstown project in Toronto. “We’re all pretty anxious to get this thing started.”

Metrolinx purchased the property at 500 Howard Street in 2014 as part of GO train expansion plans that will see two new stations built in Oshawa – including the central station at the Howard Street site – and two more in Clarington.

The project was promised by the Liberals in 2016 and then delayed when Doug Ford and the Progressive Conservatives came to power before Ford made the extension a campaign plank during the last election.

Last June Ford declared the project is “one step closer to getting shovels in the ground” after announcing Bowmanville Construction Partners – a general partnership between Ledcor CMI Ltd. and Dragados Canada – as the construction manager.

There hasn’t been much to report since then, with the crossing from the existing Oshawa GO station south of Highway 401 to the north side, still to be built.

The new station, and the revitalization of the surrounding neighbourhood has been on Oshawa’s wish list since former Toronto Maple Leafs owner Steve Stavros abruptly closed the food terminal in 2000.

Since then the site abutting First Avenue had been mostly forlorn and forgotten and far from first in the eyes of planners until the extension was announced, which will see Metrolinx build two new stations in Oshawa – Thornton’s Corners and the Central Oshawa station – and two in Clarington, including Courtice and the new end-of-the-line in Bowmanville.

The $730-million, 20-kilometre extension will include new tracks and signals, seven new bridges and at-grade crossing upgrades. Once completed, it will provide all-day service in both directions between Bowmanville and Union Station, including peak weekday service every 30 minutes, and is expected to reduce in-vehicle travel times between Bowmanville and Union by 15 minutes.