Racing towards 2015

Construction is well underway in the West Don Lands, in preparation for housing the athletes in the 2015 Pan Am Games.  Toronto was fortunate to have been awarded the games in November of last year.  If you have been down to the Distillery district, or taken the Queen streetcar anytime over the past few months, it would seem like little to no activity has occurred on the old Ataritiri lands, but that couldn't be further from the truth.
 The history of that site is quite extensive, from once being a city park in the 1700's, to a home for working class Irish immigrants in the late 1800's, then being transformed into an multi use industrial area with factories as well as being owned by the railways right up until the 1970's.  After industries relocated to bigger lands, and technology changed the way factories operated, the West Don Lands sat abandoned for decades with Toronto city council debating for years as to what the future held for this huge chunk of prime Toronto real estate.  A plan was created to turn the area into a new community named Ataratiri (which is a Huron word meaning, supported by clay), in reference to the soil base on this site.  Plan after plan, assessment after assessment, red tape, debates, and still no decision, the Ontario government took possession of the land in 1996.  

With a collaboration of federal, provincial and municipal governments, a new task force was created in 1999 to create a single vision for the waterfront of Toronto, which included the West Don Lands.  This group named Waterfront Toronto strategized ways to ensure that Torontonians as well as tourists had access to a multi use, functional, as well as environmentally sound waterfront that was the envy of any other world class city that has water as it's welcome mat.  Waterfront Toronto was formally established in the fall of 2001 and up and running in 2002.

There was no longer the challenge of having too many cooks in the kitchen and still no food on the table.  Waterfront Toronto has established a single vision laid out so methodically and thoroughly that Toronto is well on it's way to having the world class waterfront it deserves.  

Here are just a few of the plans for the West Don Lands:

-  23 acres of parks and public spaces including 18-acre Don River Park


-  Public transit within a five-minute walk of all residences


-  5,800 residential units, including 1,200 units of affordable rental housing


-  One-million square feet of employment space


-  Pedestrian & cycling connections within neighbourhood and to city


-  Elementary school


-  Recreation centre


-  Two childcare centres

Just south of the West Don Lands is the Lower Don Lands with even more plans to revitalize the once heavily industrial area into mixed use areas including wetlands, redirecting the mouth of the Don River and extensive plans for transit growth.

With the 2015 Pan Am Games only five years away, and huge commitments to public housing, transit and environmental sustainability ensured to the committee that granted us the games, Ontario needs to speed up the process a little more to ensure that we pull off a flawless event.  After 2 failed attempts at getting the summer Olympics here, the Pan Am Games are the perfect warm up for the real deal which Toronto will host one day I'm sure. 

The process to clean up the contaminated soil in the West Don Lands has been expedited; as well, water mains and sewers have all ready been installed which is the bloodline to the new community.  It's exciting to see the area begin the transformation into what hopes to be a vibrant functional area like so many other Toronto neighbourhoods, but the key component to the area is transit.  As we know already, it takes years to get streetcar right of ways built (St. Clair), and not one bit of work has begun on the Queens Quay east line running out of Union station looping up to the West Don Lands.  The plans for the area are fantastic, realistic and exciting, and I look forward to tracking the work as it heads towards the fast approaching 2015 deadline.

here are some more links to learn more about the area:

West Don Lands history

Webcams of the West Don Lands

Don River Park

West Don Lands Precinct Plan