Toronto's Railway Lands - Date unknown Colin McConnell.

15 October 2012

Toronto Casino Proposal Would Turn Railway Lands into Public Park

Toronto Ontario - A $3-billion casino development that would see a sky-high face lift in the city's downtown core also has greener plans at ground level to transform the unused space over the Railway Lands into a 5.5 acre park.
 
Oxford Properties Group president and CEO Blake Hutcheson said the proposed park space would extend over the industrial rows of tracks south of Front Street toward the waterfront, linking the CN Tower, Rogers Centre, Metro Toronto Convention Centre, and offering a new vantage on the city.
 
"For anybody who has walked that area, you know it's not user-friendly to get from the dome to the CN Tower," Hutcheson said. "This park is really made to serve as a platform that links all those public amenities together."
 
The park would extend over the rails, accessible by stairs from street level, and connect to retail and other proposed sites including a hotel and casino complex.
 
While specifics have yet to determined, the park would include landscaped gardens, pathways, and rest areas, Hutcheson said.
 
"In terms of a construction feat, so much of the redevelopment anywhere in the world today is built over yards," Hutcheson said, citing another Oxford project in Manhattan, Hudson Yards, which is built over rails. "That's sort of the last option."
 
The shape of the space would distinguish Oxford's proposal from more linear re-purposed rail spaces like New York's popular High Line Park, a more than two-kilometre linear park built into a defunct elevated railway line.
 
But Chris Pommer, partner for PLANT Architect which designed City Hall's podium garden roof, said what's important is reclaiming public space while preserving some of the industrial history.
 
"These were places nobody was really allowed to go," Pommer said of the rail lands. "It's a challenge of course to find these spaces, but it's also a great opportunity to make something that is challenging to our idea of what a park should be."
 
He said it's also rewarding to bring people closer to landmarks or allow them to experience familiar sights in a new way.
 
"They connect more with their city," he said.
 
And as condos and other developments continue to encroach on the available space, Pommer said it's important to get a little creative.
 
"In downtown Toronto we're not going to build a new High Park because the land just isn't available," he said. "Now we have to look at other possibilities."
 
Jennifer Pagliaro.