Today we officially launch UrbanToronto Pro, a new subscription service that provides the most comprehensive information on construction projects in the Greater Toronto Area—from proposal right through to completion stages.

Anyone whose job involves spending time researching planning data knows how arduous it can be to dig around for information. UrbanToronto Pro is designed to make the job so much easier.

 

 

UrbanToronto has been reporting on the GTA’s visible growth for years and we’re known as the premier source for information on the thousands of projects across the city and the hundreds of cranes sitting atop them. But Toronto is also growing invisibly. 

The invisible growth is in the development application process. Dozens of applications for new condo towers, office buildings, warehouses, and more are submitted in the GTA every month. More than a hundred more are being updated with new documents, new requests, and legal decisions. There are also thousands of companies—from carpenters to architects, from excavation to plumbing and more—that bring these projects to life.

There is a lot of information that’s hidden behind complicated government websites, too onerous to track, or simply not documented in official submissions to the planning department. UrbanToronto Pro collects and deposits this data into a one-stop shop that subscribers can access at any time.

Any changes or new projects are immediately visible via the Updates page.

 

UrbanToronto Co-Founder and President Edward Skira says, "UrbanToronto has been the number one source for development and real estate information. We are now in our third decade of business, having started with our popular discussion Forum, then delivering original reporting on our news page, and more recently launching the New Development Insider subscription newsletter. Tracking and storing development data is part of our heritage." 

UrbanToronto Pro is the natural result of our years of researching, documenting, mapping and reporting on development in the GTA and there’s no other product like it. UT Pro will allow subscribers to see technical information about heights, units, GFA, and personnel information about which companies are involved in the developments we cover. Subscribers will have access to all our data—with easy searching, reporting, and mapping capabilities. 

What this means: 

• Our data goes back many years
• It is updated constantly as new information comes in
• It is a single place for you to track, compare, and plan for growth in your area.

 

View our list of over 5000 companies, and track the projects they are currently and previously worked on.

What sets UrbanToronto Pro apart? Let us count the ways: 

1. Fast and convenient access to crucial planning data. No more downloading and digging through multiple PDFs to find one small bit of information, or manually inputting that data so you can analyze it later.
2. Information straight from the source. This means access to the planning documents from across the GTA website, or the developer or architect’s website, or one of our partners disclosing the information to us directly.
3. Continuously updated information. We update our database as new information comes in. It doesn’t matter if the project was just announced or has been under development for years: if there’s data on it, we will include it.
4. A historical repository of projects. Currently, the city does not keep records of the planning documents of projects once they have been approved. This historical perspective is missing from a planning perspective. UrbanToronto Pro promises to keep track of all projects from start to finish, even if they are canceled along the way. No one else is offering a similar service. 
5. Built on trusted platforms. UrbanToronto Pro is built on Salesforce, one of the most trusted names in the world of sales and reporting. Our maps use Google. This means that the stability of UrbanToronto Pro will be as reliable as two multibillion dollar tech companies. 

"Our vision of UrbanToronto Pro is to make identifying the 'who, what, where, when, and how' of a project easy to track and compare using state-of-the-art technology. Our customers answer the 'why’: to inform better planning, to build Toronto into one of the greatest cities in the world," says Skira.

Create custom maps to visualize the data based on criteria of your choice.

 

What does UrbanToronto Pro look like? The site features a constantly-updated feed of the latest updates on all projects, an ability to create custom reports, and the latest mapping software so you can visualize where the growth is and will be happening in the city. 

The data we track can be split up into two main buckets: data pertaining to the physical building, and data about the companies tasked with bringing the project to life. We track over 60 fields pertaining to the physical building, and more than 5000 different developers, suppliers, architects, excavators, and other companies involved with each project.

UrbanToronto’s Economist Ash Navabi, having worked behind-the-scenes to build UrbanToronto Pro, says, “Economic modelling is more than just predicting GDP and unemployment levels based on national-level data. For local entrepreneurs and policy makers to plan for providing their local communities better, nothing beats local data. And economic data is not just about prices: understanding the choices and tradeoffs individuals and businesses are making today—whether it’s how many units to build, or where to put them—can help in predicting prices tomorrow. UrbanToronto Pro provides a unique way of seeing the internal business decisions of the biggest private spenders in the local economy: real estate developers. The impacts for the future of the city are incalculably large.”

 

Create your own custom CSV-exportable reports, based on over 60 different fields that we track.

 

In summary, here are some insights and benefits you can glean from the data found in UrbanToronto Pro:

• Access all the data in the UrbanToronto database, including principals involved (developers, architects etc.), height, type of development, construction status, planning links and more
• Projects covered include: Hotel, Residential (Condo, Rental, Townhouse), Industrial, Office, Public Space, Retail, and Transit 
• Generate new business leads with lists of new proposals early in the development cycle 
• Monitor new and existing projects from application to construction completion
• Save time. No need to wait and search city websites
• Map based navigation to show what's happening in any location in the GTA 
• Ability to track 2,500+ projects and 5,000+ companies and their specific endeavours

There’s so much more to UrbanToronto Pro than we can cover here.  Contact Us to get a full tour!