Toronto Buttonville Municipal Airport, based in Markham, has been put up for sale by co-owners Cadillac Fairview and Armadale after redevelopment plans appear to be in limbo.
“We can confirm that, after forming a joint venture almost 10 years ago, Cadillac Fairview and our partner, the Sifton Family, have made a joint decision and are in the process of putting our positions in the Buttonville airport site for sale,” Cadillac Fairview said in a statement.
“At Cadillac Fairview, we are constantly looking at ways to evolve our portfolio, and after a strategic review of our development program, we have decided to focus our efforts on our downtown Toronto land bank, which includes the recent purchase of the East Harbour lands, as well as the densification of our existing retail portfolio.”
The airport has consistently been ranked in the top 10 of Canada’s most active airports, according to its website, and offers hangar space, flight training and aircraft maintenance.
Property developer Cadillac Fairview and Sifton family holding company Armadale bought the airport in 2010 with the intention to redevelop the 170-acre site into a mixed-use mecca with retail, residential units and a 13-acre human-made lake.
However, those plans have remained in bureaucratic limbo for the better part of nine years after the owners submitted an application for land-use changes in 2011 to the Ontario Municipal Board (now the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal). The scale of the project, which included up to a dozen mid-rise to highrise buildings, led to ongoing negotiations.
It wasn’t until April 2018 that Cadillac Fairview and Armadale announced that the site would continue to operate as an airport until at least 2023 due to delays in the rezoning quest.
At that time, Cadillac Fairview said any extension of that time frame would depend on the “progress of approvals” by the OMB.
Now, it appears the owners have given up all hope of redeveloping the land with its proposed sale, but what will become of the airport remains unclear. It is a pretty hot property, bordered by Highway 404, Renfrew Drive, 16th Avenue and Valleywood Drive, where large swaths of land are hard to come by.
A representative for the City of Markham was not available to comment on how the city would like the land to be developed, but it is designated as a “provincially significant employment zone” by the Ontario government, meaning office towers could be in its future.
