Groundbreaking ceremony held for new York Quay park
Posted August 28, 2012 10:32 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A groundbreaking ceremony was held for a new waterfront park at York Quay behind Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre on Tuesday morning.
The park, which will open next spring, was once a stretch of asphalt used for parking. The parking lot has been moved underground and the surface will soon be covered with trees.
“We are seeing our dream take shape,” Harbourfront Centre CEO William Boyle said, during the ceremony.
Moving the parking lot was not only necessary for people driving to the centre, Boyle said, but it was also a source of revenue for the non-profit group. The underground lot has 300 spots, 112 more than the surface lot. No financial details were provided.
“The federal government…gave funding for the lot through Waterfront Toronto, which kick-started the transformation on the surface,” Boyle said.
Harbourfront Centre and Waterfront Toronto worked together on the project. The park is designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh and Associates, which also designed the Brooklyn Bridge Park in New York City.
The new park will include an area called Canada Square, which will be ringed by 44 redwood trees, and an area called Urban Square, which will include an event space and an open plaza. Eventually, the park will be the home of Harbourfront Centre’s Cultural Village.
Waterfront Toronto is also in the midst of a $1.9-billion plan to revitalize the industrial Port Lands district, just east of the Harbourfront Centre.
