TORONTO—Philanthropists Judy and Wil Matthews recently announced a $25-million gift to completely change and reclaim a large unused space underneath the Gardiner Expressway between Strachan and Spadina Avenues.
The money will fund the creation of more than four hectares (10 acres) of new public space. This includes 1.75 kilometres of multi-use trail beneath the elevated expressway. The trail will create a new off-street route for walking and cycling that touches some of the city’s densest and most walkable urban neighbourhoods.
The initiative has been temporarily called Project: Under Gardiner and is a partnership between the Matthewses, the City of Toronto and Waterfront Toronto.
The project will also create a new east-west cultural and amenity corridor that helps to connect attractions across the waterfront, explains a release, including the Molson Amphitheatre, BMO Field, Historic Fort York, Toronto Music Garden and the revitalized Queens Quay to name a few.
The overall vision behind Project: Under Gardiner is to create a public space that connects some of Toronto’s neighbourhoods such as Liberty Village, Niagara, Fort York Neighbourhood, CityPlace, Bathurst Quay and Wellington Place.
"The project will knit these communities together with innovative programmable spaces that will showcase Toronto’s unique cultural and related offerings — music, food, theatre, visual arts, education and civics, dance, sports and recreation," the release states. "These spaces have been conceived as ‘rooms’ that are defined by the series of concrete post-and-beam structural elements supporting the Gardiner. Up to 55 civic rooms can be fashioned to house a wide variety of year-round programming."
Waterfront Toronto will manage and build the project on behalf of the city, with the Matthewses’ gift leveraging the city’s existing investment in rehabilitating and maintaining the Gardiner.
Ken Greenberg, a city planner and urban designer, will lead the design team, working with Adam Nicklin and Marc Ryan of PUBLIC WORK, an urban design and landscape architecture studio.
While the new public space that will be created is encouraging, the Matthewses have asked the city and Waterfront Toronto to develop a "self-sufficient funding model that ensures this new space has the enhanced operation and maintenance service levels needed."
As part of the process, Waterfront Toronto will also be encouraging public engagement and consultation, inviting Toronto residents to participate in the design process and development of the programming vision. Public engagement starts with a "Reclaim the Name" campaign that will ask the public to help give the space a name that is "uniquely Torontonian." The campaign will begin in December.
Construction is set to start in the summer of 2016. The first phase of the project is targeted for completion in 2017.
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