January 2022
Kingston Road in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough, formerly part of The King’s Highway #2, was once a major east-west travel route in and out of the east end of Toronto. Like many of the provincial highways across Ontario, the section through Scarborough featured an assortment of motels, serving as a haven for road-weary travelers looking for a place to rest for the night.
In the years after World War II, the economy was booming and people had money to spend. Luxuries, like cars and family vacations, were becoming more and more affordable to families across Canada and America. As air travel was still quite expensive, automobiles were the preferred method of travel.
However, back in the 1950s and 60s, vehicles were less efficient and drivers were required to stop more frequently for gas and oil. The post-war baby boom resulted in bigger families, so there were more bathroom breaks and snack demands. Roadside motels and gas stations popped up all along the improved highways.
Travelers, and even locals taking a pleasure dive around the city, could enjoy the soda fountain and in-room television at the Avon, grab diner in the spacious dining room of Andrew’s Motel or go for a swim in the outdoor pool at the Roycroft.
The glory days of for the Kingston Road Motels came to an end with the completion of Highway 401 across the northern end of Metropolitan Toronto in 1968, by-passing most of this section of Highway #2.
The drop in traffic led to the closure of many motels, and those who remained began catering more and more to long-term tenancies by those seeking affordable housing, rather than travelers. Tenants, many of whom unable to rent apartments because of addictions, mental illness, bad credit or because of their pets, paid rents as stunningly high as $375 each week.
With little incentive to maintain the motels, some owners let them deteriorate to the point where they are barely habitable, with holes, rot, unreliable water, power and heating, being common complaints from tenants.
Other motels are contracted by Toronto Hostel Services, for use as shelters for homeless and new immigrants.
Some of the Kingston Road motels no longer in operation:
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Paragon/East Side Motel
Originally opened in 1949 as the Paragon Motel, it featured 42 fully modern units, a basement ballroom/convention hall, restaurant and children’s playground. It was re-named the Wellington Motel in 1973, and then the East Side Motel in 1987.
In August 2018, the last of the approximately 40 tenants were evicted by the City of Toronto, who had expropriated the dilapidated motel from owner Kahlon Family Holdings Ltd., ending a three year battle to buy the property. The long, one-story L-shaped building, was demolished.
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Andrews Motel – 4434 Kingston Road
Andrews Motel, at 4434 Kingston, opened back in the 1950s, with a restaurant added beside it in 1959. It was one of a two-motel chain, with the other Andrews Motel located six miles to the east at 2245 Kingston Road.
By 2015, both the motel and restaurant had been demolished, replaced by a six-story condominium tower.
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Andrews Motel – 2245 Kingston Road
It was one of a two-motel chain, with the other Andrews Motel located six miles to the west at 4434 Kingston Road. It was demolished in 2015 and replaced with a nine-story condominium tower.
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Avon Motel
Royal Motel
The Avon and Royal Motels both opened in 1955. They were owned by the Schweda family, until sold to a development company, The High-Rise Group, in 2017. All long-term tenants were ordered to vacate their rooms by 7 January 2021.
Both motels will likely be demolished sometime in 2022, and will be replaced by two condominium towers of 22 and 11 stories.
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White Castle Inn
The White Castle Inn, a popular local landmark and watering hole, had its beginnings when it took over the former mansion of Edward Trout and his wife and Jennie, a Scottish immigrant woman who would go on to become the first woman to legally become a medical doctor in Canada, and the only woman licensed to practice medicine until 1880.
The white stucco mansion, with a turret capped by a high-pitched roof, was destroyed by a fire in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Replaced with a modern, three-storey hotel with 52 rooms that included balconies, dining and cocktail lounges.
In 2005, the motel was replaced with a new building, now housing the Retirement Suites by the Lake, a senior retirement residence.
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Pine Motel
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Scarboro Motel
The Scarboro Motel was demolished in 1973, and the property now contains a retail plaza.
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White Swan Motel & Restaurant
3370 Kingston Road
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Arcade Motel
The Arcade Motel opened in the late 1950s and closed in the mid 1970s. The property was bought by U-Haul for use as a truck rental and storage outlet. The motel building was retained and extensively remodeled, and although it looks nothing like the former motel, it’s clearly recognizable from the above side-by-side photos.
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Montoro Motel
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Kin-Tor Motel
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Merry Mac’s Motel
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Pine Court Motel, now Idlewood Inn
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In most communities, there is a severe shortage of affordable housing, especially in major cities like Toronto. As these motels have shown, there is a need for housing options for those on the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder. Unfortunately, free-market capitalism dictates that the motel owners can choose, up to a point, not to maintain their buildings, in anticipation of a bigger win-fall when a developer eventually buys them out.
At some point the municipal building standards department will issue orders to the motel owners to repair their buildings, but these orders don’t always result in better housing conditions for the tenants, especially in the long-term. Motel owners may make minimal repairs, or engage in protracted legal battles with municipalities, with the goal of eventually selling to a developer.
In extreme cases, the owner may elect to shut down the motel and evict the tenants, then leave it to deteriorate, while awaiting the eventual sale to a developer.
When these properties are eventually redeveloped, often the redevelopment plans include condominiums that few of the evicted motel tenants could possibly afford.
While some former motels have been bought up by municipalities, renovated and converted into reasonably-priced housing units, it’s beyond the ability of many municipalities to adequately maintain and manage these units without cooperation of the private sector; a private sector that will expect to expect a financial return for their participation.
Municipalities operating their own inventory of public housing are often just as poor at maintaining the units as the previous motel owners. Just look at the current state of the Toronto Community Housing Corporation’s (TCHC) inventory, which in 2021 had an estimated backlog of over $470 million in interior capital repairs, which actually represents only 29.5% of the total repair backlog. This is in addition to the gang and drug problems that plague many of the TCHC developments across the city.
This is in addition to the quandary of whether it’s better to convert old motels to affordable housing units, or demolish them and build new, higher capacity apartment towers? Motels by their design, are low-rise buildings on large plots of land, which can be an inefficient use of the land, but can the housing truly be “affordable” when you build new, larger buildings, without government subsidies?
It’s easy to say that developers should designate a certain percentage of their apartment units as “affordable,” but should governments really dictating to private corporations how much profit they have a right to earn? Remember, profits don’t just go into the pockets of the owners/shareholders. They can be used to help maintain the building at a better standard than the dilapidated motels they replaced.
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Some of the Kingston Road motels that remain, for now:
Roycroft Motel
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Americana Motel
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Hav-A-Nap Motel
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Park Motel
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Maple Leaf Motel
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Alda Motel, now Grand Motel
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Plaza/New Plaza Motel
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Lido Motel
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Check out these webs site on some American motels, past and present:
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Sources: https://nowtoronto.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-kingston-road-motel-strip, The lost motels of Toronto (blogto.com), Condos, townhouses coming to Scarborough’s Kingston Road motel strip | Toronto.com, ‘This is nuts’: Scarborough motels’ tenants told to leave before Jan. 7 | Toronto.com, Scarborough’s Avon and Royal motels on Kingston Road strip to disappear | Toronto.com, City of Toronto closing down Scarborough’s notorious East Side Motel | Toronto.com, Scarboro’ Motels – Mid Mod T.O. (midmodto.ca), What motels used to look like in Toronto (blogto.com), no room at the inn | Flickr, At Scarborough’s East Side Motel, residents live in ‘dire’ conditions | Toronto.com, Scarborough hotel to become homeless shelter – The Toronto Observer, Status Update on Design and Construction of Tenant Service Hubs and Interior Improvements (torontohousing.ca), Today in history: 1935 – Birch Cliff News, U-Haul: U-Haul Moving & Storage at Kingston Rd (uhaul.com), Retirement Suites By The Lake | Scarborough Retirement Home | Greenwood Retirement Communities (comfortlife.ca).
