Plans unveiled for Toronto’s ‘own Lincoln Center’
TO Live presents latest details of $421-million redevelopment plan for the St. Lawrence Centre
The city agency responsible for Toronto’s civic performance venues has unveiled new details of its $421million plan to redevelop the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, offering a glimpse into the facility that will be anchored by a state-ofthe-art theatre and an “acoustic hall” overlooking the downtown skyline.
TO Live, which manages the city’s three major theatres, presented the latest renderings at a public town hall this week.
The planned redevelopment — one of the largest capital projects in decades for a civic arts venue in the city — comes after Toronto’s city council approved a plan in 2020 to tear down and replace the aging facility, which it says has fallen into a state of disrepair and no longer meets current municipal codes.
The project “is about transforming and taking a building which currently no longer serves its purpose — and also doesn’t meet any kind of accessibility standards — and opening it up to the public by creating a gathering space that the city of Toronto just doesn’t have,” said Clyde Wagner, CEO of TO Live, in an interview.
The new venue will feature two main performance spaces, replacing the 868-seat Bluma Appel Theatre and the more intimate 499seat Jane Mallet Theatre.
The larger of the two spaces, located on the first and second floor, will seat 716 patrons when configured for theatre and dance, according to the most recent designs. The auditorium will be fitted with automated lifts that will allow the space to be reconfigured, providing the option for in-the-round settings, thrust stages or traditional proscenium styles.
The fourth floor, above the main theatre, will house the St. Lawrence Centre’s acoustic hall, a 300-seat venue facing west with a direct view of the CN Tower.
The centre’s new design was previously selected through an international competition that culminated last year. The winning design team includes Hariri Pontarini Architects, LMN Architects, Tawaw Architecture Collective, Smoke Architecture and SLA.
Siamak Hariri, founding partner of Hariri Pontarini Architects, described the redesigned cultural hub as Toronto’s “own Lincoln Center.”
The St. Lawrence Centre “should feel like you can hang out there and it’s really yours, that you could just sit and observe all the wonderful things that are happening there as a person would do sitting in their living room,” Hariri said in an interview.
The redevelopment will include the closure of a portion of Scott Street, which will be turned into a tree-lined plaza open for outdoor programming. Behind the plaza, a bridge will connect the St. Lawrence Centre to the existing Meridian Hall, also operated by TO Live.
The price tag to renovate the facility so it meets current standards was pegged at $42 million, when the city considered renovation over redevelopment in 2020, according to city reports.
The new facility is currently expected to cost $421 million, with the City of Toronto reallocating funds from the centre’s budget for “stateof-good-repair and (accessibility) upgrades,” pegged last year at $50 million for the centre’s 10-year capital plan. A spokesperson for TO Live said the organization is also looking for matching funds from the provincial and federal governments, supplemented by “private and corporate partners as well as foundations and individuals.”
Construction is expected to begin in 2026 with a planned completion date of 2030 or 2031.