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On February 26th, Metrolinx announced the start of construction on the main station building for East Harbour Station, located to the southeast of the Eastern Avenue and Don Valley Parkway interchange. This future major rail junction will eventually allow riders to transfer between Ontario Line 3 and the Lakeshore East and Stouffville GO lines.
This milestone follows the initial site work that began in May 2025, announced by Mayor Chow and Premier Ford at a ground breaking ceremony on the then largely empty site. In the eight months since that announcement, construction activity has consumed the future site of East Harbour. To the north of the station site, the concrete base of the widened bridge segment that will eventually carry six tracks for GO, VIA, and Ontario Line 3 service over Eastern Avenue was poured. Along the length of the grounds, foundation work was completed to prepare for a planned extension of Broadview Avenue south under the rail corridor to Lake Shore Boulevard and beyond.
Additionally, just west of where the GO and Ontario Line platforms are to be constructed, a new bridge has begun rising over the Lower Don River. To the north of the long-standing Lakeshore East GO bridge over the Don Valley Parkway and river, this bridge will one day serve as the first of three crossings of the Don River that the Ontario Line will traverse over the course of its alignment.
This past January, the eastern segment of the bridge span was slid into place, (above), a feat that required the temporary closure of the highway below. The west side of the bridge's girders are now being built. When finished, it will provide Ontario Line 3 riders with a scenic view of the lower Don Valley.
Now, construction is also underway on East Harbour's main station building, which will also function as a large bridge, or more accurately a viaduct, over both Eastern and Broadview avenues, as shown in the rendering below. Both the GO and Ontario Line 3 platforms will be elevated above street level, with passenger access managed through at-grade entrances and concourses in an arrangement similar to Union Station’s current operations.
The Ontario Line and GO platforms will be within easy access of one another for the thousands of riders projected to transfer at East Harbour daily, but the services will remain distinct from an operational perspective. This choice has allowed for additional flexibility in station design, as the GO platforms are notably set to feature a more pronounced curve as they stretch toward Eastern Avenue, a geometry that while typically avoided in contemporary metro or subway construction in Ontario, is common around Europe and Asia.
GO platforms will resemble the typical rail platforms Metrolinx has implemented when modernizing existing stations and developing new ones. Platforms will be wider, fully accessible, and include numerous egress points to improve passenger flow and connectivity throughout the substantial site. In contrast to the transit hub's Ontario Line 3 platforms, which will feature platform screen doors, the GO platforms will not be enclosed and will instead feature only a canopy.
Below track level, at-grade concourses will serve as the primary points of entry and transfer for riders, where each individual platform is accessed from behind the fare gates.
While East Harbour's ridership is projected to be second only to Union Station's, the architectural gap between the two will be drastic. Initial renderings released by First Gulf, the previous owner of the 60-acre East Harbour redevelopment site immediately to the south, envisioned a much grander station in the early phases of their concept for the site, which they touted as Toronto's Canary Wharf, depicting a grand curving canopy covering the rail corridor and platforms.
First Gulf sold the site to Cadillac Fairview, and what was initially planned as a 12 million square foot business district with multiple office towers started to be whittled away at. With significantly less demand for office space now, Cadillac Fairview is looking to convert much of the future space to residential, which does not provide the same revenue for architectural splash-outs. Subsequently, the current design, shown in the rendering below, is entirely utilitarian, but could be integrated into new development directly beside and/or above parts of it, meaning this may be the initial condition upon opening, but possibly not the final condition.
Much has happened timeline-wise over the last several years to both the greater development here and the station itself, with the pandemic having played a major role in delaying and changing the plans. Initial projections indicated that the GO Transit portion of the East Harbour Transit Hub would open in 2028, while the Ontario Line section was scheduled to open alongside the rest of that line in 2031. However, the official Metrolinx project page no longer provides a completion date. Furthermore, Metrolinx CEO Michael Lindsay recently stated that the province can no longer commit to a 2031 opening date for the Ontario Line.
UrbanToronto will continue to follow progress on this development, 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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UrbanToronto's research and data service, UTPro, provides comprehensive data on construction projects in the Greater Golden Horseshoe—from proposal through to completion. Other services include Instant Reports, downloadable snapshots based on location, and a daily subscription newsletter, New Development Insider, that tracks projects from initial application.
| Related Companies: | Adamson Associates Architects, Urban Strategies Inc. |
