The condo kids are all right
Canoe Landing to open schools, daycare facility and community centre
Lindsey Low wears many hats: she’s a stay-at-home mom, a professional organizer, the emergency contact for condo kids in her downtown Toronto community and — most recently — she’s been moonlighting as a construction overseer of sorts.
From her eighth-floor balcony in the CityPlace neighbourhood, Low, 38, has been keeping close tabs on the development of Canoe Landing Campus. It’s the highly anticipated community facility going up on the last parcel of the Railway Lands, just north of the Gardiner Expressway and west of Spadina Ave., adjacent to Canoe Landing Park.
Low has been documenting the cranes and construction on Instagram, where she posts photos and videos from her bird’s eye view of the $78-million project, a collaboration between the City of Toronto, the Toronto District School Board and the Toronto Catholic Public School Board.
“Here is what our view will turn into in the next year and a half! So excited! No more bus rides to school!” she posted under a rendering of the new campus, which features a public elementary school, Catholic elementary school, child care facility and a community centre.
“School progress is our daily entertainment! It’s especially great when the guy in the crane waves back at your children!!” reads another post.
Low and her husband, Adam, 39, an equity analyst, are among the thousands of CityPlace residents eagerly awaiting the completion of the 160,000-squarefoot, multi-purpose space, set to open in 2019.
Not only will the Lows’ 4-year-old daughter, Ayla, start Grade 1 at the new Jean Lumb Public School next fall, but their 2-year-old son, Linden, who has epilepsy, will also have convenient access to programs at the community centre.
While Low says there is already a strong sense of community among CityPlace residents, this new development will bring desperately-needed amenities to the area, which is home to 20,000 highrise dwellers and counting.
As it stands now, kids are bussed to different schools and families scatter outwards to attend programs and activities across the downtown core. Low says because of major traffic congestion in the area, her daughter sometimes spends up to two hours a day on her bus commuting to and from school, which is just two kilometres away. “Once the new school is set up, all of her friends will be there!” says Low.
Gary Pieters, president of the CityPlace Residents’ Association, says about13 per cent of families living in the neighbourhood have children. A twostorey educational playroom designed by the Ontario Science Centre and a community kitchen are just a couple of treats residents will find inside the new centre.
“It’s definitely going to complete this family-friendly downtown community,” he says. “It’s something that’s essential and necessary.”
Pieters, who has lived in the area since 2005, was among hundreds of residents — including many young families with strollers — who attended community planning meetings to offer suggestions and give feedback. Many residents talked about the realities of living with limited square footage and how for them, local amenities and parks become an extension of their living spaces.
The city of Toronto commissioned ZAS Architects & Interiors to design the massive project. The firm listened closely to community input when bringing their vision to life.
“We wanted to create the sense that Canoe Landing Campus is an extension of the landscape,” says Paul Stevens, principal at ZAS Architects.
He says the dynamic, sloping green roof is a highlight of the design, and features urban gardens, a jogging track and a basketball court.
“This is a very important view because a lot of residents are looking down on this park,” says Stevens. “The roof had to be more than just a roof, it had to be esthetically unique, but we also wanted to program it.”
Sustainability was a huge priority too; the roof generates 10 per cent renewable energy, thanks to photo-voltaic panels and the campus buildings form a C-shape to maximize solar rays. Stevens, who raises his 15year-old twin sons in a downtown condo, says the outcome of this project will likely be monitored closely as Toronto continues to expand vertically.
“This is going to be a really, really important litmus test in terms of creating one instant education community learning hub,” he says.
The city of Toronto’s Ann-Marie Nasr, who spearheaded the Growing Up Toronto: Planning for Children in New Vertical Communities initiative, agrees Canoe Landing Campus may very well be used as a blueprint for other high-density neighbourhoods across Toronto.
“Travel around the city; whether you’re in North York, Etobicoke or Scarborough, you don’t see large tracks of vacant land,” she says. “So what we need to be doing is — every facility that we are looking at building — we have to look at integrating other facilities and services with them.”
Nasr says it’s important to let imaginations run wild and consider unique ways to bring people from all walks of life together to share the same spaces and breathe life into neighbourhoods. “When we have the opportunity to create these new facilities, we have to grab that opportunity and make them amazing!” she says.