Toronto budget commits $160M to waterfront revitalization works
The City of Toronto has committed more than $160 million over the next five years to improve parks and community centres on its waterfront lands.
The items in the city’s budget are designed to ensure liveable, sustainable and connected communities along Toronto’s central waterfront.
Highlights include:
- Ferries and shoreline infrastructure – replacement of two ferries and electrical shoreline infrastructure at the ferry terminal ($75.9 million investment over three years, including $12.3 million in 2023)
- Love Park – to be completed in 2023 ($15 million total budget)
- Leslie Lookout Park – to be completed in 2023 ($2.7 million investment)
- One Yonge Community Recreation Centre – to be completed in 2023 ($19.1 million total budget)
- Bathurst Quay Revitalization projects – new waterfront park to be completed in 2024 ($8 million investment in the 2023 budget)
- Rees Street Park – expected to be completed in 2026 ($19.2 million total budget with $2.5 million invested in 2023)
- East Bayfront Community Recreation Centre – expected to be completed in 2025 ($25 million total budget over the next three years with $1.3 million invested in 2023)
- Shoreline improvements – rehabilitation of shoreline infrastructure for the High Lake Effect Flooding and Windstorm projects ($22.8 million investment in 2023 across the waterfront)
“The City of Toronto’s 2023 budget makes investments in Toronto’s waterfront that help move our city forward and will benefit all residents who live, work and play in and around the central waterfront,” said Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie. “The enormous multi-year commitment made by Toronto City Council of more than $160 million ensures that the waterfront continues its evolution into a more liveable and sustainable community.”
Work on Toronto’s waterfront revitalization began between 1988 and 1992 with the Royal Commission on the Future of the Toronto Waterfront, resulting in the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation Act and the creation of Waterfront Toronto.
Development accelerated in 2002 with combined equal investments totaling $1.5 billion and ongoing collaboration from all orders of government. Revitalization was further advanced in 2016 with commitments by all three levels of government for the Port Lands Flood Protection project, which is ongoing.
The ongoing portfolio of work is considered North America’s largest urban redevelopment program and one of the most extensive waterfront revitalization efforts in the world.