Developers are grabbing every available lot in the King West area, driving out long-time fixtures and pushing up values

I wept when Crangle's Collision shut its doors. I wept again when the McGregor Socks factory did the same. Both are in the neighbourhood where I work, an urban hot spot known as King West. It's a few blocks west of downtown Toronto and it's suddenly alive with construction and demolition, openings and closings, renovations and renewals.

The end of Crangle's, a crude art-deco fixture near the corner of King and Bathurst streets since the Second World War, meant I had to find a new repair shop for my cursed Volkswagen Passat. I'm still looking; Crangle's, as far as I can tell, was the last of its kind in this part of the world. Ditto McGregor. Where do I buy the cheap socks that my kids apparently bury in the garden after one wearing? On the other hand, if I want to blow $200 on a lunch or dinner, or join an overpriced gym, I have enough choices to make my head spin like a radar dish.

I knew the convenience of Crangle's and McGregor was a luxury that couldn't last. Values in the neighbourhood are soaring along with the roof lines.

As far as I could tell, the trio loved their jobs and loved the place's pleasantly low-tech atmosphere. Remove the old black-and-white car posters and the front office, with its wooden cubicles and ancient filing cabinets, could have starred in a 1940s private eye movie. They lost no money in waiting as long as they did to sell. The deal came last year and Crangle's closed at the end of January. "The property became more valuable than the business," one of them said.

The price: $13.2-million, and the buyer -- no surprise -- is a condo developer. Freed Developments, led by Peter Freed will build a $150-million, 17-storey building that will contain about 340 condo and 95 hotel units. The building, designed by Peter Clewes, who is the architect of the new Four Seasons condo and hotel tower in Toronto's Yorkville neighbourhood, will have floor-to-ceiling glass. The smallest condo units will start at $179,000, with the biggies going for as much as $1.5-million.

Mr. Freed, 37, is enamoured with the King West area, so much so that Crangle's is one of five projects he is undertaking in the area (the others include 20 Stewart St., a tiny lot bought for $1.8-million, and 79 Portland Ave., bought for $5-million). When all the construction is completed, Mr. Freed will have built 1,000 condos, collectively worth $300-million.

What's the appeal? "King West is shaping up to be one of the great neighbourhoods," Mr. Freed says of the area roughly bordered by Spadina Avenue on the east, Front Street on the south, Adelaide Street on the north and Bathurst Street on the west. "You can walk to the downtown core from here, walk to the CNE, walk to the waterfront. It has the King streetcar. It has great restaurants. It has history."

He's referring to the old factory buildings and warehouses along King and Wellington streets, the famous Wheat Sheaf Tavern, a Bathurst and King fixture for more than 150 years and, notably, Victoria Memorial Park. The park (as it's called), at Portland and Niagara streets, is actually a cemetery for some of the dead of the War of 1812. A few of the neglected tombstones were incorporated into a memorial in the park. Other tombstones, which are in storage, are to be returned as part of a $1-million park restoration.

King West was discovered years ago by developers as Toronto's downtown centre of gravity moved to the west. There are no property bargains left, developers say. The cost of properties per "buildable foot" -- that is cost of the property divided by the total above-ground floor area of the completed project -- typically ranges from $30 to $70, though higher prices are not unusual.

That's not Yorkville prices, which are $100 a buildable foot or more. But the rush of money into the neighbourhood is bound to push up values even more.

Julie Di Lorenzo, the president of Diamante Development Corp., owner of the Domus and Royalton condo buildings in Toronto, says King West is a hit with developers because it's cheaper than trendy, perhaps overly trendy, Queen Street West, and because the properties are fairly large by downtown standards.

That means you can build big underground garages -- the Crangle's site will have three-level parking -- and fairly high elevations. King West will probably never be a high-rise area, like Yorkville is becoming. But it will have developments in the 10- to 20-storey range.

The King West area will see no fewer than 20 developments of various sizes and shapes in the next few years. Some are tiny. Langston Hall Development bought a 0.137-acre site for $3.13-million. The Crangle's development appears to be the largest.

As the neighbourhood comes alive with wrecking balls and cement mixers, it's personality will change. Indeed, with anchors such as Crangle's and McGregor already gone, the area has already lost some of its mixed-used, blue-collar appeal. Ms. Di Lorenzo wonders whether King West will become "pasteurized" in time. That's another way of saying bland, as Yorkville is becoming, as Wellington Street between University and Spadina has already become.

Mr. Freed says it won't happen; since the majority of the King West buildings are protected, he suspects the area will not lose its historic, pedestrian-friendly, lively flavour. "These old buildings aren't going anywhere," he says.

We'll see. Toronto has passion for eradicating its history, of giving the developers free rein to erect what they want, where they want. As developers and city planners call for less suburban sprawl and more urban density, more and more downtown neighbourhoods will come under threat. King West may be next, though there's an equally good chance it will be spared the worst excesses. Even developers learn from past mistakes.

I desperately miss Crangles's. My car is falling apart. I'm glad the Crangle boys made a good buck. After four generations of being covered in grease, they deserved it. Still, the place isn't the same without them.