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Major progress is underway on the east side of Downtown Toronto to deliver subway service to one of the city's oldest neighbourhoods, as work continues at the site of Moss Park station. Located at the intersection of Queen Street East and Sherbourne Street, the excavation of the station box has now been completed, following the start of work in 2023.
Excavation and staging areas have occupied most of Moss Park since construction on Ontario Line 3 began in the downtown core more than two years ago. As the first station to the east of the Ontario Line's future interchange with Yonge Line 1 at Queen station, it will significantly expand rapid transit access in the downtown east.
Already a highly connected neighbourhood that's within walking distance of the Financial District and served by the 501 Queen streetcar and the 75 Sherbourne bus, the area has experienced substantial growth over the past decade. Within a stone's throw of the future station site, a 33 storey, 40 storey, 34 storey, 52 storey, and 28 storey have all completed construction in the last year or will reach occupancy soon.
While the future station site and Moss Park as a whole have been parkland for decades, the area was part of a 100-acre estate that in the nineteenth century belonged to one of Toronto's wealthiest residents, William Allen. The estate included his mansion for many years, at a time when Queen Street East was still a largely rural country lane. As the city grew, demand for the land increased, and Allen's son eventually subdivided the property. Located in a prime spot just east of Jarvis Street, at the time home to many of Toronto's influential elite, the former country estate quickly filled with Victorian houses, brick storefronts and factories. By 1939, all that remained of the once expansive Allen estate was a small parcel of land west of Sherbourne Street, surrounded on all sides by homes and businesses.
As part of one of Toronto's infamous twentieth century urban renewal projects, however, a large swath of the area bounded by Shuter, Parliament, Queen, and Jarvis streets was razed. From west to east, this once prestigious urban neighbourhood was replaced by the Moss Park Armoury, Moss Park, and four social housing towers. With the exception of a few rows of storefronts east of Sherbourne Street — one of which is now home to the famed Kim’s Convenience — the area’s entire urban fabric was essentially wiped away. In keeping with the planning ideals of the time, the portions of George, Seaton, Ontario and Berkeley streets that once ran through the site were removed from the street grid, eliminating all local streets from the renewed neighbourhood.
Similar to the once infamous Regent Park to the north, this heavy-handed redevelopment left Moss Park blighted for decades, with many describing it as one of Toronto’s most destitute neighbourhoods. Despite previous years of disinvestment, though, the area has begun to transform again from Toronto’s rapid economic and population growth throughout the 2000s. As a result, the neighbourhood now features an impressive skyline and thousands of new residents, drawn by comparatively affordable home prices and its proximity to the core.
Thanks to this dramatic growth, when long-festering plans for the Downtown Relief Line were revised in the late 2010s to create what is now the under-construction Ontario Line, the placement of a station in the heart of the neighbourhood was assured. Despite brief protests in 2023 over the removal of trees in the park to facilitate construction, work has been advancing quickly.
This past summer, excavation of the station box, the space that will eventually contain platforms and subway tracks, was completed. Since then, workers have installed a waterproofing membrane along the walls of the excavation, an essential step to ensure that leakage does not impede progress on the station structure and future interior features.
This preparatory work will eventually allow for the arrival of two large tunnel boring machines (TBMs), dubbed Libby and Corkie, which will break through the western wall of the station box before continuing toward Corktown station to the southeast. Set to launch from Exhibition station in early 2026, the TBMs will tunnel through King–Bathurst, Queen–Spadina, Osgoode and Queen stations before reaching Moss Park. They will then continue to their final downtown stop at Corktown station before completing their journey at GO Transit’s Don Yard, where a tunnel portal is being built to facilitate their extraction.
Libby and Corkie have been named for the neighbourhoods where their journey will begin and end, Liberty Village and Corktown respectively. The TBM names were coined by UrbanToronto Forum member and moderator Jason Paris, and they won a popular vote overseen by Metrolinx this past September.
UrbanToronto will continue to follow progress on Ontario Line 3, but in the meantime, you can learn more about it from our Database file, linked below. If you'd like, you can join in on the conversation in the associated Project Forum thread or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.
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| Related Companies: | Blackwell, ERA Architects |
