AlvinofDiaspar
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From the Post:
The future 'jewel' of Toronto's waterfront
Posted: February 01, 2008, 10:04 PM by Barry Hertz
Peter Kuitenbrouwer continues his series about the rich history and future promise of our region’s great shore.
John Campbell, chief executive of Waterfront Toronto, has taken a wrong turn in the vast field of mud that is the West Don Lands, an area from Cherry Street to the Don River, between Eastern Avenue and the Canadian National Railway tracks. His silver Acura is heading into tracks too rutted for a sedan. With guidance from a worker, Mr. Campbell backs up, and we are soon back on the gravel trail that leads through this 32-hectare development site.
Mr. Campbell is too adroit to let a little mud bog him down. For nearly five years he has navigated twists and turns, bumps and ruts, running an agency co-owned by the federal, provincial and city governments and mandated to transform the city’s waterfront.
Now Mr. Campbell, who, in his old job at Brookfield, piloted the BCE Place project, finally can offer a multi-stop tour of stuff happening on our water’s edge. “It was five years of planning, politics and approvals,†he says. But now the waterfront is finally transforming. “This is one of the largest infrastructure projects in North America. We’ve got four of the top 10 landscape architects in the world working with us right now.â€
Control over the destiny of 1,000 hectares by the lake gives him power, he boasts: “We’re the Saudi Arabia of OPEC. We have the swing to influence the marketplace.â€
One thing is clear: Decades after the biggest industries left the Toronto Port, the hand-wringing is over. Shovels and cranes, barges and bulldozers are at work. This week, as I reached downtown Toronto on my ongoing tour of the GTA waterfront, I got a treat: a front-row seat to one of the biggest games in town. The first big project is here in the West Don Lands. Everywhere spreads a clay and dirt tundra, spiked with what look like thousands of white teeth, jutting out at one-metre intervals. These wicks suck out moisture, which is then pumped from the site.
We pass a trench where a crew is laying a cement pipe on steel stilts. (In building the site, engineers discovered the city’s century-old sewer main could not withstand the earth they want to move here for a park. And so they are building a lower lever interceptor sewer). “This has taken us longer than expected,†says Mr. Campbell. “We thought we’d just build a berm and put a park on top, but it’s turned out to be a major engineering project.â€
We are a bit far from the waterfront, proper, but no one else knew what to do with the 32-hectare site, home to a failed Ontario project for affordable housing, so they gave it to Waterfront Toronto (known as Toronto Waterfront Redevelopment Corp. until last year). By 2010, the first of 6,000 dwellings (20% of them “affordableâ€) will open in the area, along with a nine-hectare park.
Mr. Campbell’s tour includes several other highlights:
• He shows where tugs are pushing a barge into position to finish setting piles for the Spadina Quay boardwalk.
• Next we stop at the foot of York Street, where WT built a gorgeous boardwalk with granite benches on the water’s edge.
• East of Redpath Sugar, we see cranes driving piles into the earth for the new headquarters of Corus Entertainment Inc., a $130-million, city-funded project with $9-million from WT.
• We stop at Cherry Beach, much cleaned and primped with Waterfront cash.
• East of the beach Mr. Campbell points out new sports fields, which will open this summer.
Some have criticized the process, asking about the secrecy of some deals. For years WT referred to the Corus deal as “Project Symphony, and its design review panel went “in-camera†in November to look at a plan for a George Brown College building next to Corus.
Eight years in, WT is nowhere on a plan to connect the city’s busiest bike path through Harbourfront, though it insists that will come. Two years ago, as WT expanded, Mr. Campbell moved the organization from Queens Quay Terminal to 20 Bay St., 13th floor, into offices vacated by a failed dotcom. WT now employs 60, plus “lots of consultants and contractors.â€
Speaking in the WT boardroom, Mr. Campbell, affable, enthusiastic and confident, gulps three cups of coffee as he flips through a sweeping power point of his realm. A self-described “air force brat,†he retains a twang from his native Annapolis Valley, N.S.
“It’s really quite different from redevelopment,†he says of his challenge. “You don’t need a separate entity to peddle real estate on the waterfront. How do we build quality of place that attracts, as Richard Florida says, the best and the brightest? We want people to point to Toronto as a sustainable city, not Stockholm. But we don’t want to build enclaves for the super-rich on the water’s edge, like Melbourne or Sydney.â€
Mr. Campbell says he has learned from the mistakes of the past, such as failing to consult dog-walkers and others before announcing changes at Cherry Beach. He boasts of 60 consultations a year. But as the deals begin to fly fast and furious, a key test will be whether this group has the fortitude to stick to its design principles, even at the risk of seeing some developers walk away.
On public land, Waterfront Toronto has power to use contracts with builders to direct use. Mr. Campbell says his group will avoid the wall of ugly condos that plague Harbourfront, and instead allow mainly low-rise housing, up to 10 floors. Over 25 to 30 years, this group will permit 40,000 residential units and 10-million-square-feet of employment space. All the buildings must qualify for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold, based on quality of insulation, green roofs and other factors.
As WT sells land, proceeds will fund further projects. So far, Mr. Campbell estimates his group has spent $200-million. Waterfront Toronto plans to bankroll new streetcar lines on Queens Quay East and down Cherry Street. The corporation also seeks partners to install “ultra-broadband, open access†Internet service to all new buildings, and to build a $200-million power plant that will heat and cool all the new office and apartment buildings. City staff right now is studying vacuum waste, a Swedish idea Mr. Campbell wants to bring here.
He also wants non-profits to pitch ideas for affordable housing: “Maybe it’s the Latvian Seniors Society or the Anglican diocese,†he suggests. As he strolls down the boardwalk WT designed and built south of Queens Quay Terminal, the morning sun sparkling on Lake Ontario, Mr. Campbell’s voice fills with promise.
“Can you iagine in 30 or 40 years out, the mid-rise and the high-rise and the boardwalks and the cafés? It’s going to be a jewel for the future of Toronto.â€
AoD
The future 'jewel' of Toronto's waterfront
Posted: February 01, 2008, 10:04 PM by Barry Hertz
Peter Kuitenbrouwer continues his series about the rich history and future promise of our region’s great shore.
John Campbell, chief executive of Waterfront Toronto, has taken a wrong turn in the vast field of mud that is the West Don Lands, an area from Cherry Street to the Don River, between Eastern Avenue and the Canadian National Railway tracks. His silver Acura is heading into tracks too rutted for a sedan. With guidance from a worker, Mr. Campbell backs up, and we are soon back on the gravel trail that leads through this 32-hectare development site.
Mr. Campbell is too adroit to let a little mud bog him down. For nearly five years he has navigated twists and turns, bumps and ruts, running an agency co-owned by the federal, provincial and city governments and mandated to transform the city’s waterfront.
Now Mr. Campbell, who, in his old job at Brookfield, piloted the BCE Place project, finally can offer a multi-stop tour of stuff happening on our water’s edge. “It was five years of planning, politics and approvals,†he says. But now the waterfront is finally transforming. “This is one of the largest infrastructure projects in North America. We’ve got four of the top 10 landscape architects in the world working with us right now.â€
Control over the destiny of 1,000 hectares by the lake gives him power, he boasts: “We’re the Saudi Arabia of OPEC. We have the swing to influence the marketplace.â€
One thing is clear: Decades after the biggest industries left the Toronto Port, the hand-wringing is over. Shovels and cranes, barges and bulldozers are at work. This week, as I reached downtown Toronto on my ongoing tour of the GTA waterfront, I got a treat: a front-row seat to one of the biggest games in town. The first big project is here in the West Don Lands. Everywhere spreads a clay and dirt tundra, spiked with what look like thousands of white teeth, jutting out at one-metre intervals. These wicks suck out moisture, which is then pumped from the site.
We pass a trench where a crew is laying a cement pipe on steel stilts. (In building the site, engineers discovered the city’s century-old sewer main could not withstand the earth they want to move here for a park. And so they are building a lower lever interceptor sewer). “This has taken us longer than expected,†says Mr. Campbell. “We thought we’d just build a berm and put a park on top, but it’s turned out to be a major engineering project.â€
We are a bit far from the waterfront, proper, but no one else knew what to do with the 32-hectare site, home to a failed Ontario project for affordable housing, so they gave it to Waterfront Toronto (known as Toronto Waterfront Redevelopment Corp. until last year). By 2010, the first of 6,000 dwellings (20% of them “affordableâ€) will open in the area, along with a nine-hectare park.
Mr. Campbell’s tour includes several other highlights:
• He shows where tugs are pushing a barge into position to finish setting piles for the Spadina Quay boardwalk.
• Next we stop at the foot of York Street, where WT built a gorgeous boardwalk with granite benches on the water’s edge.
• East of Redpath Sugar, we see cranes driving piles into the earth for the new headquarters of Corus Entertainment Inc., a $130-million, city-funded project with $9-million from WT.
• We stop at Cherry Beach, much cleaned and primped with Waterfront cash.
• East of the beach Mr. Campbell points out new sports fields, which will open this summer.
Some have criticized the process, asking about the secrecy of some deals. For years WT referred to the Corus deal as “Project Symphony, and its design review panel went “in-camera†in November to look at a plan for a George Brown College building next to Corus.
Eight years in, WT is nowhere on a plan to connect the city’s busiest bike path through Harbourfront, though it insists that will come. Two years ago, as WT expanded, Mr. Campbell moved the organization from Queens Quay Terminal to 20 Bay St., 13th floor, into offices vacated by a failed dotcom. WT now employs 60, plus “lots of consultants and contractors.â€
Speaking in the WT boardroom, Mr. Campbell, affable, enthusiastic and confident, gulps three cups of coffee as he flips through a sweeping power point of his realm. A self-described “air force brat,†he retains a twang from his native Annapolis Valley, N.S.
“It’s really quite different from redevelopment,†he says of his challenge. “You don’t need a separate entity to peddle real estate on the waterfront. How do we build quality of place that attracts, as Richard Florida says, the best and the brightest? We want people to point to Toronto as a sustainable city, not Stockholm. But we don’t want to build enclaves for the super-rich on the water’s edge, like Melbourne or Sydney.â€
Mr. Campbell says he has learned from the mistakes of the past, such as failing to consult dog-walkers and others before announcing changes at Cherry Beach. He boasts of 60 consultations a year. But as the deals begin to fly fast and furious, a key test will be whether this group has the fortitude to stick to its design principles, even at the risk of seeing some developers walk away.
On public land, Waterfront Toronto has power to use contracts with builders to direct use. Mr. Campbell says his group will avoid the wall of ugly condos that plague Harbourfront, and instead allow mainly low-rise housing, up to 10 floors. Over 25 to 30 years, this group will permit 40,000 residential units and 10-million-square-feet of employment space. All the buildings must qualify for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold, based on quality of insulation, green roofs and other factors.
As WT sells land, proceeds will fund further projects. So far, Mr. Campbell estimates his group has spent $200-million. Waterfront Toronto plans to bankroll new streetcar lines on Queens Quay East and down Cherry Street. The corporation also seeks partners to install “ultra-broadband, open access†Internet service to all new buildings, and to build a $200-million power plant that will heat and cool all the new office and apartment buildings. City staff right now is studying vacuum waste, a Swedish idea Mr. Campbell wants to bring here.
He also wants non-profits to pitch ideas for affordable housing: “Maybe it’s the Latvian Seniors Society or the Anglican diocese,†he suggests. As he strolls down the boardwalk WT designed and built south of Queens Quay Terminal, the morning sun sparkling on Lake Ontario, Mr. Campbell’s voice fills with promise.
“Can you iagine in 30 or 40 years out, the mid-rise and the high-rise and the boardwalks and the cafés? It’s going to be a jewel for the future of Toronto.â€
AoD
