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While more and more people chose to live in Downtown Toronto to enjoy an urban way of life, the primary land use in this changing part of town remains quite unchanged as businesses and government institutions continue to operate and expand in the heart of Ontario's Capital City. While the private sector inhabits the greatest portion of space in Toronto's core, the public sector is a major player here too with similar needs for functional, modern space. Indeed, court space is part of that need, and a Request For Proposal was recently announced by Infrastructure Ontario to build a new courthouse northwest of City Hall and in the vicinity other provincial office buildings.
In view of improving courthouse accommodation and service delivery, the Ministry of the Attorney General intends to bring together under one roof several of Toronto’s Ontario Court of Justice criminal courts. Out of the 11 existing court locations and 177 associated court rooms, up to 8 will be relocated in the new downtown facility. One can expect a considerable building due to the many employees, clients and witnesses that will keep the edifice busy.
The site is located at 11 Centre Avenue, within the city block delimited by University Avenue to the west, Dundas Street West to the north, Chestnut Street to the east and Armoury Street to the south. Owned by the Province of Ontario, the property is currently being used as a surface parking lot and will remain so during the planning phase, which will last until 2016 at least, when Infrastructure Ontario will start leading the procurement process on behalf of the government and will manage the project through the design and construction phases.
Being in the very early stages of the project, no renderings or details concerning the architect, size or design of the court house are available yet. However, the amount of $15,000,000 was claimed on the Daily Commercial News website a few months ago. UrbanToronto will provide you with the latest updates when they become available. In the meantime, if you wish to get involved in the discussion, you can check out the associated Forum thread, or leave a comment in the space provided at the bottom of this page.
