This is a photographic rendering from Christie Street prepared by consultants for The Woolverton development at Mountain & Elm. If a picture is worth a thousand words, this one rendering alone might be a novella.
Why The Woolverton Is Before Council Again
The original compact 7-storey development at 13 Mountain and 19 Elm Street, pictured below, was, for the most part, well received by many residents due in part to features presented as community benefits. Despite the praise, the project was turned down in a nearly-split vote by the previous term Council on March 21, 2022.
As with most municipal development refusals, the applicant appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal. A settlement was reached and the OLT later issued a decision on February 8, 2024, approving the development at 7 storeys.
For most applications approved by a municipality or decided at the OLT, shovels in the ground come next. But in this case, they did not.
13 Mountain & 19 Elm Transferred, 21 Elm Street Acquired
On December 18, 2024, 13 Mountain and 19 Elm were transferred from Valentine Coleman 1 Inc. and Valentine Coleman 2 Inc., respectively, to an entity called Woolverton Development Corporation. One day later, on December 19, that same corporation acquired 21 Elm Street.
The acquisition and consolidation of the additional Elm property represented a major shift in the scope of the development. It reflected not only movement towards additional height, but also a broader site footprint.
May 2025 Application
A formal development application for the now larger site was submitted to the Town in May 2025 and “deemed complete” in July 2025. This was no longer simply the same 7-storey project returning in a slightly altered form. Instead, it was a new proposal on a much larger site, with different planning rationale and a bigger overall scale.
This version proposed an 8-storey, 177-unit building that the developer’s planning firm called a “contextually appropriate building”. While 449m² of space was allocated for a community hub, other public interest benefits were reduced. Despite the new proposal being larger, retail space went from 529m² down to 279m², bicycle parking decreased, and on-site parking also decreased. The proposal also relied on municipal parking lots to provide 18 “off-site visitor” spaces.
March 2026 (Current) Revision
After the public meeting in September 2025 and after agency comments were received on the May 2025 version, consultants went back to work and made further revisions to the application.
The headline revision of this new proposal was that it was now back at 7 storeys with 150 units. On paper, that might sound like a general return to where this all began, but the proposal was materially different.
The shift away from the original compact 7-storey building had already occurred with the 2025 application on the enlarged site. The March 2026 revision did not reverse that shift. Although the height returned to 7 storeys, the proposal remained on a 31% larger site, with a different footprint, different massing, and a different relationship to the surrounding area.
Compared with the previous version, some features presented as public benefits were reduced or removed. Bicycle parking was reduced again, and while the applicant added 4 on-site parking spaces overall, the proposal also relies on 5 additional off-site parking spaces, a total of 23, in the municipal lot being allocated for visitor parking through “cash-in-lieu”. Private amenity space did increase, but other features were removed in the process.
The revised proposal removed the 449m² of community hub space, including that designated in Woolverton Hall. The applicant’s planning addendum states plainly that the revised proposal no longer includes a specific public service component and that the previously contemplated community hub has been removed.
As a whole, while the number of storeys returned to 7, several other important aspects of the previous proposals did not return with it. And despite these and other notable changes, no additional public meeting was called to solicit resident input on those revisions.
Planning & Development Committee Approval (April 2026)
The revised proposal as noted above went before the Town’s Planning and Development Committee on April 22, 2026. Following presentations from Town Planning Staff, the applicant’s planning firm and a stakeholder in the proposal, the Committee carried the resolution to approve the Official Plan Amendment and Zoning By-law Amendment to move this application forward. There was no recorded vote showing yeas and nays.
That is not the final say on this proposal, however. That resolution is really only a recommendation to Council, which either approves the recommendations of the Committee via the minutes, or lifts the item from those minutes for separate consideration. Given the public attention this application has received in recent years, it is likely to be the subject of debate at Council’s April 27, 2026 meeting.
The Photo Rendering
This brings us back to the rendering you first saw, which is reproduced below. While not everyone can digest planning reports, studies and architectural drawings, the image conveys the proposal’s apparent scale more directly than any report or diagram.
The photo rendering is significant because it shows the proposal in the surrounding landscape, against the backdrop of the Niagara Escarpment from Christie Street, often described as the ‘Gateway to Grimsby’ and the ‘Gateway to Niagara’.
As shown, this proposal sits between two critical areas, the Escarpment and the downtown. Sightlines and view impact are important to Grimsby’s identity and are relevant to the assessment of the current application. The rendering also displays the effect of the increased footprint and the resulting greater visual prominence than the building presented to residents in 2022.
The rendering shown here was submitted to the Town as part of the View Impact Assessment study and is relevant to assessing the proposal’s apparent scale, massing, and relationship to the Escarpment setting.
More Than Just Height
Height matters, but so does massing, width, footprint, parking impacts, the removal of public-facing benefits, and potential impacts on views of the Escarpment. Those are part of the proposal and part of the decision before Council.
Architecturally, there are ways to reduce the slab-like impression of the current version, including by progressively stepping the building back within the Escarpment view corridor and improving its integration with the existing built form as contemplated by the Official Plan.
This building, whatever final form it takes, will shape how the downtown evolves and what future proposals in this area are measured against.
The Decision Before Council
Council will be asked to make a decision on the latest version of The Woolverton at its April 27, 2026 meeting. Council’s decision will take place in the context of an application that is materially different from what was previously approved.
The question for Council is whether the current proposal, viewed as a materially revised application on a larger assembled site, is appropriate in massing and scale for this sensitive location at the edge of the downtown and within the Escarpment setting.
Meeting Information
Residents wishing to contact Members of Council about the matter can find Council contact information on the Town’s website at:
https://www.grimsby.ca/town-hall/mayor-and-council/about-the-mayor/
https://www.grimsby.ca/town-hall/mayor-and-council/town-councillors/
The April 27, 2026 meeting is open to the public in Council Chambers at Town Hall, 160 Livingston Avenue. Alternately, you can watch the livestream at the Town’s YouTube meeting link here.
The meeting starts at 6:30 PM.