Toronto tech plan eyes Google firm
Landing Sidewalk Labs to build Quayside project would boost city’s push to be a centre of innovation
Sidewalk Labs, a sister company of tech giant Google, is the preferred partner to build a high-tech “smart” neighbourhood on Toronto’s east downtown waterfront, the Star has learned.
The board of Waterfront Toronto, the federalprovincial-city agency overseeing the so-called Quayside project, is expected to vote at an Oct. 20 meeting on whether to confirm the agency’s staff recommendation arising from a rigorous competitive bid process launched in May.
If confirmed by Waterfront Toronto’s board, the choice of a firm owned by Google holding company Alphabet would be a big high-tech feather in the cap of the city currently chasing the second headquarters of Amazon and other innovation opportunities.
Quayside is envisioned as a test bed for cutting-edge technology as well as a bustling, functioning neighbourhood, with homes, offices, retail and cultural space, near Queens Quay E. and Parliament St.
A source familiar with the outcome of Waterfront Toronto’s request-for-proposal told the Star on Wednesday that Sidewalk Labs is Waterfront Toronto’s “preferred proponent” to help build the “precedent-setting waterfront community.”
Waterfront Toronto, Google and Mayor John Tory’s office all refused comment Wednesday, citing confidentiality and the integrity of the bid process.
Sidewalk Labs is Alphabet’s urban innovation unit, which has the stated goal of “reimagining cities from the internet up.”
Dan Doctoroff, the company’s chief executive and co-founder, told a conference in New York City last May that his company was “looking into developing a large-scale district” to act as its smart city test bed.
The community would be universally connected by broadband and could have, Doctoroff said, prefab modular housing, sensors to constantly monitor building performance, and robotic delivery services to cut residential storage space, website the Architects’ Newspaper reported in May.
Improving transportation would be a focus, possibly with self-driving cars and design to encourage biking and walking, he told the conference. World-leading environmental sus- tainability could include thermal exchange systems to capture wasted building heat and smart sensors to limit energy use. Waterfront Toronto says the 4.9-hectare site will be “a test bed for emerging technologies, materials and processes that will address these challenges and advance solutions that can be replicated in cities worldwide.”
The agency said the winning bidder must propose plans to foster sustainability, resiliency and urban innovation; complete communities with a range of housing types for families of all sizes and income levels; economic development and prosperity driving innovation that will be rolled out to the rest of the world; and partnership and investment ensuring a solid financial foundation that secures revenue and manages financial risk.