This year, the Urban Land Institute is holding its Spring Meeting in Toronto. We are excited to welcome our fellow leaders who are shaping the built environment from all around the globe to our city. From the integration of Transit Oriented Developments into the fabric of our infrastructure, to the transformation of under-utilized space to sustainable high-density communities, our team will be sharing our ideas and expertise as part of various tours, talks, and other programming during the week.

Women’s Development Collaborative Spring Meeting

Principals Shonda Wang and Liana Bresler along with Senior Associates Danielle Whitley, Andrea Gaus, and Lina Al-Dajani will be joining the Women’s Development Collaborative Spring Meeting. Their inspiring programming of tours and talks entitled Women Making History and Women Transforming Toronto will spotlight women developers and entrepreneurs transforming the city’s downtown with inclusive design and innovative mixed-use developments.

Retail Stories: Shopping Toronto’s Main Street

Senior Associate Rahul Nargas is organizing a tour of the Downtown Yonge retail corridor. The tour will explore the downtown core of Toronto’s Yonge Street and feature insights from Senior Associate Michael Matthys about the role that heritage conservation policy can play in supporting this retail fabric and function.

Toronto By Water

Associate Kelly Graham and Reva White are planning a boat tour along the Toronto harbour. The cruise will pass by Toronto Island Park, one of the city's most beloved park spaces, along with the Port Lands, an industrial district currently being developed into a new neighbourhood.

SvN led the urban design and landscape study for the Port Lands Acceleration Initiative (PLAI). The study focused on identifying a financially viable strategy to realize the full potential of the 840-acre site. A central challenge for developing the site has been flood protection costs and the required infrastructure. The study identified ways to phase the revitalization process, involving a review of the Lower Don Lands Planning Framework, proposing changes for the plan to the re-naturalized river.

Mega Re-urbanization

Principal Drew Sinclair and Associate Kevin Hurley will lead a tour of the high-density neighbourhoods transforming the areas around the downtown rail lines. The walk will explore The Well, CityPlace, and the surrounding parks and community infrastructure. Drew and Kevin will speak about the proposed Rail Deck District and its contributing role in the 30-plus year post-industrial transformation of the City’s railway lands.

Accelerating Transit-Oriented Communities

Principal Drew Sinclair and Senior Associate Aaron Budd, and Associate Kevin Hurley are leading a tour of key Transit Oriented Communities along the Lakeshore GO Line.

Recently, the province of Ontario announced a $28 billion regional transit plan and introduced a suite of land use policy changes designed to encourage significant density around transit. Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency, recently announced a new “market-driven strategy” to facilitate cooperation with private developers to help finance the construction of new transit infrastructure with profits from adjacent commercial and residential development.

Kevin Hurley will be facilitating a discussion with senior leaders from Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario, introducing tour attendees to the Transit Oriented Communities (“TOC”) program, and exploring the different roles that the two respective agencies play in bringing TOCs to reality.

Drew Sinclair will be guiding a tour around the Grand Central Mimico. This SvN-led master plan that completely reconceived how the development sites could be designed to fully integrate with the directly adjacent Metrolinx rail lands and Mimico GO Station area, which is slated for redevelopment and expansion.

Sports and Entertainment: Cathedrals of the 21st Century

John Bautista is organizing the Sports and Entertainment: Cathedrals of the 21st Century walking tour of the cultural corridor of John Street and Bremner Boulevard. This densely programmed area reflects Toronto’s cultural, creative, and athletic life from the Canadian Broadcasting Centre, built in 1988, to our major sports stadia, festival venues and aquarium surrounding the CN Tower. Many of these venues include high-density residential and office developments, often replacing underused surface parking lots and railway lands. A stop at the Ontario Place and Exhibition Place completes the tour giving an expansive picture of Toronto’s sports and entertainment scene in the next decades.

First Story Toronto

Senior Associate Graham Bolton, in partnership with Brian Porter of Two Row Architects, are organizing and leading a tour on the history of Indigenous peoples of the Toronto region and how the infrastructure of their first occupation continues to influence the fabric of the city today. As Canada commits to a process of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, Toronto seeks to rise to the occasion; first by acknowledging our gratefulness for the opportunity to share this land with our First Nations partners and commemorating the thousands of years of sovereign Indigenous occupation before the arrival of the settler nations, then by recognizing centuries of sordid history that has past between first contact and the present. The tour will also illustrate present-day approaches to reconciliation in an urban setting.

Challenges and Lessons Learned in Achieving TOD Objectives

As part of the ULI Americas Transit Oriented Development Council, Principal and TOD Council Vice-Chair Shonda Wang will be moderating a discussion on the constraints, challenges, and opportunities in optimizing structurally integrated transit and development. The panel will include Lorraine Huinink (Director, Rapid Transit and Transit Oriented Development at Durham Region), Heidi Green (Director, Development at RioCan), and Bob Paley (Senior Director TOD at NYMTA). This panel will be the second in a three-part series unpacking "Barriers to TOD".

Presentation of Toronto TOD Projects

Principal Liana Bresler will be presenting Transit Oriented Developments and Communities along the Mimico, Corktown, and Exhibition stations. They be talking about SvN’s development of Corktown Station + TOC, one of 15 TOC sites along the new 15.5 km Ontario Line Subway that will travel across the Downtown Core up to Midtown to intersect with the under construction Eglinton Crosstown LRT. The proposed sites at the future Corktown Station would deliver a mix of new housing opportunities, commercial, retail and community space, while commemorating the history of the First Parliament site.