Toronto’s underground city faces bleak future
PATH’s greatest strength becomes a weakness as crowds disappear
To get an idea of the long recovery ahead for Toronto’s financial district, take a walk through the vast subterranean pathways that connect the city’s skyscrapers.
COVID-19 has turned the food court under the Brookfield Place office complex into a ghost town. Single chairs sit at empty tables, passengerless escalators climb desultorily upward, and the click, click, click of a woman’s heels is all that can be heard in what is normally a cacophony.
“It’s depressing,” said Subway franchise owner Ani, who declined to give his last name. Just one customer showed up in the first 15 minutes of lunch hour on a recent week day. “I feel horrible like everyone else. I miss the business. I miss the customers.”
In the years leading to 2020 B.C. (Before COVID-19), some 250,000 people a day would descend into the PATH to shop or grab a bite in the more than 30 kilometres of halls and subterranean plazas that snake under North America’s second-largest financial district. But as banks sketch out plans for an eventual return to their offices, the future looks a lot more bleak for the network below.
The trouble facing the PATH is an acute version of what’s ahead for all commercial hubs that thrive on a concentration of activity. What was once a strength for brick-and-mortar merchants — being in the heart of an area where hundreds of thousands of people work and shop — has been transformed into a weakness.
For starters, it’s unclear how quickly workers will be returning to the skyscrapers above. On Friday, Toronto Mayor John Tory announced two dozen major employers had agreed to keep most of their downtown staff at home at least until September.
But even when they do trickle back to the financial hub known as Bay Street the indoor PATH faces the added pandemic-era challenges of relatively narrow halls, “pinch points” prone to pedestrian congestion and little access to fresh air.
“The PATH is in for some deep trouble,” said Bruce Winder, an independent retail analyst. Minimal traffic, small spaces and high rents is “a very bad formula.” He expects bankruptcies among smaller businesses, with some of the bigger chains remaining shut until people return in larger numbers. Already, womenswear retailer Reitmans Canada Ltd. and footwear chain Aldo Group Inc., which both have a presence in the PATH, have filed for creditor protection.
The subterranean system is a big component of the area’s “ecosystem,” said Diane J. Brisebois, who heads the Retail Council of Canada. “It is part and parcel of the lifestyle of the financial district, where one needs the other.”
The network provides connections between major commuter stations, more than 80 properties including the headquarters of Canada’s five largest banks and1,200 retail spots. It is popular because it offers shelter from Toronto’s freezing winters and humid summers. The PATH also links to the Scotiabank Arena, which is home of the Toronto Raptors and Maple Leafs, tourist attractions like the Hockey Hall of Fame, and the city’s flagship Eaton Centre shopping mall, currently mostly shuttered.