Athletes’ village morphing into a neighbourhood,
The area formerly used as Pan Am Games housing prepares for its next phase: a neighbourhood
The Pan Am swimming pools are empty, the white welcome tent is long gone, but workers are hammering away, tearing down temporary walls in condominiums that once housed athletes and coaches, and will soon become homes to a whole new community of Toronto residents.
Come next April, about 2,000 people will start moving into what, just this summer, was the Pan Am Games athletes village. Soon, the neighbourhood will be better known as the Canary District. Retailers will take over sparkling new storefronts next January. “The move will happen over four months because we’ve only got so many elevators,” said Jason Lester with a smile. He’s the vice-president of Dream, which, along with Kilmer Van Nostrand, codeveloped the $800-million-plus project, a 35-acre neighbourhood to the east of the Distillery District.
Right now, workers are in the process of turning the bare-bones condos, which each housed up to five athletes and bunk beds, into homes for folks who bought them in the preconstruction phase as far back as 2012.
About 135 units are still for sale, some of them two-storey, 1,300-square-foot townhome units.
The hallway carpets that were walked on by athletes and officials from 41 countries are now being ripped out and replaced. Tile and trim is being installed in public areas that up until now have been largely just covered in drywall.
Condo kitchens are due to start arriving soon.
After visiting and consulting with developers of Vancouver’s Olympic Village, the teams that the Canary developers appointed to oversee planning and construction decided it was better to leave kitchens out of the units during the Games, as the athletes already had a central dining area.
Without the kitchens, Pan Am and Parapan organizers could fit up to five bunk beds per unit. That reduced the need to build up to three more buildings in time for the Games, which would have been costly and, more important, boosted the risk the village wouldn’t be ready on time.
Organizers had set a tight deadline of last February to take control of the athletes’ housing, almost five months before the opening ceremonies of the Games, which ran from July 7 to Aug. 15.
As a result of the decision to forgo fridges and stoves for the Games, folks with units in the Canary District and Canary Park projects will walk into never-used kitchens next spring.
And post-Games, all the bathrooms have been locked off, so workers aren’t tempted to use them in the meantime.
“Buyers won’t have the feeling that five athletes slept in my unit,” Lester said during a tour of the bustling site this week.
Waterfront Toronto set the parameters for this new neighbourhood almost a decade ago, deciding where streets and parks would go and what public facilities were needed after lengthy and ongoing discussions with area stakeholders.
Building a completely new neighbourhood virtually overnight on what had been derelict industrial lands — and facing an unforgiving deadline because more than 7,000 athletes needed a place to sleep — was recognized as being risky.
“Everybody felt that the eyes of the world would be on the village. There was a feeling for everybody that this had to be great,” said Meg Davis, vicepresident of development for Waterfront Toronto.
“It could have looked like a bunker for athletes. Instead, we got this beautiful village. We do not think it could have gone any better than it has.
“The architecture is quite timeless, it all looks authentic and as if it has evolved over time.”