The Toronto Urban Land Institute is organizing a panel discussion about the Pan Am Village, currently under construction in the West Don Lands, east of downtown Toronto. The panel aims to take an in depth look into the planning and development of this new neighbourhood until its post-game use, with a focus on what was learned from past experiences in Vancouver. 

Pan Am Village site looking west towards downtown Toronto

The event will be moderated by Rob Spanier, partner and principal of Live Work Learn Play, who has over 14 years experience in mixed-use developments. Speakers will be Bruce Kuwabara from KPMB Architects, Ken Tanenbaum from The Kilmer Group, Meg Davis, Vice President of Waterfront Toronto and Peter Clewes from architectsAlliance. If you wish to attend, make sure to register before January 26th. The discussion and networking presentation will be held at the Rotman School of Management, in the Desautels Hall (2nd Floor South Building) at 105 St. George St from 5.30pm to 8.30pm.

Pan Am Village site looking west towards Downtown Toronto

This future neighbourhood will be a legacy of the Toronto 2015 Pan/Parapan American Games. It has been designed, built and financed by DundeeKilmer Developments for a cost of $514 million. Built around the critically-acclaimed Corktown Common park, the village is intended to host the 10,000 athletes, coaches and delegates that will participate in the games that will take place July 10–26 and August 7–14. Former industrial lands that remained unusable for decades due to soil contamination and the risk of flooding, the development of the West Don Lands was made possible thanks to investments made by the federal, provincial and municipal governments. They enabled Waterfront Toronto’s revitalization efforts of the 80-acre precinct, giving Torontonians a cleaned up, flood-proof, beautifully designed, sustainable new neighbourhood to live, work and play in.

The Pan Am Village seen from a webcam on January, 8th 2015

After the games, the buildings will be reconfigured to become Toronto's newest neighbourhood with the first buildings being ready for the residents to move in by the Summer of 2016. Out of 787 market residential units that will be converted, 100 will be reserved for affordable housing, while 253 other units will be affordable rental housing. George Brown College will also have its first residence in another one of the buildings, providing housing for 500 students. All of these new edifices will deliver design excellence and sustainability, with all new buildings designed to achieve LEED® Gold, a environmental certification. 

Master plan for Pan Am Village in the West Don Lands

From a facilities point of view,

  • a recreation centre that will be used as a warm-up and training facility during the games will become a new 82,000 square-foot YMCA location,
  • Cherry Street will welcome a new streetcar route connecting the residents to other parts of town,
  • shops, restaurants and cafes will open on the ground floor of the tree-lined Front Street Promenade, cutting across the Village before opening on the park.

Finally, three plots of land - blocks 12, 13, 16 - are being kept as a future market condominium reserve and will be developed progressively after the games, and will certainly come with additional recreational facilities. 

If you wish to know more about this new neighbourhood, check out the UrbanToronto dataBase files linked below. Want to talk about it? You can join in on the conversation of the associated Forum thread, or add a comment in the section provided at the bottom of this page.

Related Companies:  architects—Alliance, Baker Real Estate Incorporated, Bluescape Construction Management, CCxA, Dream Unlimited, EllisDon, LiveRoof Ontario Inc, RJC Engineers, Snaile Inc., Urban Strategies Inc., Vortex Fire Consulting Inc.