Plans for Underpass Park are underway.
Underpass Park will drastically change the existing westward view from the Don Valley Parkway, Eastern Ave. and Richmond Street area of Toronto. Here, an artistic rendering of the new view.
Photo/WATERFRONTORONTO
Waterfront Toronto has unveiled the design plans for Underpass Park, a unique new public space in the emerging West Don Lands community.The most extensive of its kind in Canada and first park in Toronto to be built beneath an overpass, the new park will transform a former industrial area into an "urban jewel," said John Campbell, the waterfront agency's president and CEO."Underpass Park is a crucial step in delivering on our promise to revitalize the West Don Lands into Toronto's next great neighbourhood," he said, in a release. "Influenced by the massive overpass structures, the park's design transforms the derelict and underused space into a bright, fully accessible urban neighbourhood amenity that will contribute to the success of the developments being built in the community."Underpass Park will be located near the northeastern edge of the soon-to-be-built West Don Lands, a new mixed-use community bounded by Parliament Street to the west, the Don River to the east, King Street to the north, and the rail corridor to the south.The new 315-metre-long park - one of 14 such projects by Waterfront Toronto throughout the city - will be built beneath a maze of overpass bridges that cross Eastern Avenue, and Adelaide and Richmond streets near the Don Valley Parkway. Vancouver-based Landscape architect Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg, in collaboration with The Planning Partnership, designed the new public space. Partner Greg Smallenberg said the new park is designed with a "focus on the everyday" by making use of available sunlight and rain as well as the bridges' concrete columns and beams. He said the project, which straddles three development blocks of the new community, would turn an otherwise nondescript 2.7-acre space into an exceptional public place for all ages, one that complements the nearby 17-acre Don River Park."Underpass Park is all about the community, the everyday, and creating 'place.' The design takes full advantage of the existing site's eccentricities and its free-for-the-taking weather protection, transforming something that might otherwise be incidental into a delightful urban patch," Smallenberg said, in a release.Underpass Park will also include a public art component - award-winning artist and architect Paul Raff has been commissioned for the job - as well as mobile cafes. Another unique design feature is a series of ribbon-like concrete and wood structures to help guide people through the park.He said some of the park's uses will include community gardens, flexible public areas for markets and festivals, areas for active recreational sports like basketball and street hockey, sitting areas, children's play and climbing structures and planting areas for native wildflowers and grasses.In brief, Underpass Park is envisioned as a safe public space that will evolve as the community grows and changes, Smallenberg said.The new park also furthers Waterfront Toronto's environmental sustainability goals by repurposing reclaimed granite cobblestones for walkways, using recycled rubber materials for the recreational court surfaces and planting more than 50 trees to beautify and naturalize the space. One component of an overall comprehensive public realm plan for the West Don Lands and adjacent to the future Pan American Games Athletes' Village, the $5.3 million Underpass Park is expected to open in spring 2011.The construction of Underpass Park is set to begin this summer.