Leslie Lookout Park, newest Toronto waterfront public space, ready to open

After breaking ground two-and-a-half years ago, the latest public park on the water’s edge in Toronto is set to open on Saturday.

Leslie Lookout Park, which is located on the west side of Leslie Street between Commissioners Street and Unwin Avenue, is on a two-acre site previously occupied by a construction equipment rental business that saw its lease expire and relocated.

“Anytime that you’re building in what is already an active industrial area … construction of itself was challenging,” Vic Gupta, the CEO of CreateTO – the municipal agency responsible for managing and developing City of Toronto lands, recalled during a recent tour of the park.

“We wanted to make sure that the soil conditions were reasonable to include a park and we had to repair the dock wall, which has been crumbling over the years.”

Consultations and a design competition began in 2020 and construction started in February 2022. CreateTO’s budget for the park was $8.5 million.

A large chunk of Leslie Lookout Park is made up of an urban beach that’s adjacent to the nearby industrial ship channel. Several trees, Muskoka chairs, benches and picnic tables are scattered throughout the site.

Officials said sustainability features were built into the site, including the use of porous asphalt to help with thunderstorms.

“It’s off of the system, so it sort of stands on its own in terms of its stormwater management,” Gupta said.

When it comes to the park’s natural features, officials said there are around 5,000 plants and trees from 45 different species. Heather Schibli, a landscape architect and arborist, said the plants and trees are based on Point Pelee National Park since it’s “the ideal plant community.”

“So we identified, kind of the ideal climactic zone to reference that will be predicted for Toronto in the next 70 to 100 years,” she said.

Schibli said they sourced some of the harder-to-come-by trees, like blue ash trees more resilient against pests like emerald ash borer, through Kayanase, a Six Nations of the Grand River nursery that uses traditional ecological knowledge and contemporary scienced-based approaches.

However, the most noticeable feature of the park is the 44-foot-tall, fully accessible concrete lookout tower.

“There was an opportunity for a long view to be elevated … this is where the sort of synergy between the architecture and the landscape comes in,” Pat Hanson, the founding partner and creative director of the landscape architecture firm Gh3, said.

She said the tower’s design and materials were inspired by structures in the surrounding industrial area.

Hanson noted a roof window allows light to filter into the blackened interior while each of the four openings has a unique size and lineup in different directions.

“The four openings are oriented north, south, east, west, according to Indigenous culture, which is sort of the capturing of northerly winds, southerly winds, westerly winds and easterly winds,” she said.

Meanwhile, as the redevelopment of the Port Lands continues and with many industrial and commercial businesses remaining outside of the smaller park, officials said they hope the area’s eastern edge will become more natural.

“We want to continue this green corridor to Tommy Thompson Park and make it a real amenity for everybody,” Gupta said.

The opening day party for the new park will happen between 12 and 3 p.m. on Saturday. Officials said there will be a DJ, sand sculpting and other activities for the family. Speeches will precede the opening.

Join us tomorrow from 12 pm – 3 pm with the @cityoftoronto and our project partners to celebrate the official opening of Leslie Lookout Park at 12 Leslie Street!

Come and enjoy family-friendly activities including a DJ, face painting, sand sculpting, play mobile and a popsicle… pic.twitter.com/0nrPO6aUSG

— CreateTO (@_CreateTO) September 13, 2024