Waterfront Toronto East Bayfront Program

The East Bayfront Precinct stretches from Jarvis Street to east of Sherbourne Street and covers an area of roughly 11 acres of prime Waterfront Toronto real estate. The keystone elements of Dockside east Bayfront are the Sugar Beach and Sherbourne Common Parks and the Water’s Edge Promenade which connects them.

Sherbourne Common has 30’ high concrete waterfall structures, a stepped concrete water channel which drops through a siphon under Queen’s Quay and a splash pad that doubles as a skating rink when colder weather prevails. The Sherbourne Common channel also runs through a Park Pavilion. The Pavilion has a unique and streamlined shape, is clad entirely in zinc and houses a café, washrooms and full water treatment facility.

Sugar Beach comes complete with large granite outcrops and a large open area covered in actual beach sand; creating a truly unique urban beach environment. The granite outcrops weigh many hundreds of tonnes and were hand-picked from a quarry in Quebec to find just the right form and quality of granite. The granite was procured well in advance, cut and shipped by over 20 truckloads, then very carefully and safely reassembled on-site.

In the Promenade, to allow for the future construction of George Brown’s new campus, 50m of the dockwall had to be stabilized with rock anchors while two caisson coffer dams had to be constructed to hold back Lake Ontario and allow services to be conveyed to future Storm Water tanks proposed along the water’s edge. This involved careful coordination between the design team and shoring contractor to allow for seamless design, approval and construction.

Awards:

• Sherbourne Common won 2013 Toronto Urban Design Awards - Award of Merit, Large Places or Neighbourhood Designs
• Sherbourne Common won 2012 OPWA (Ontario Public Works Association) Project of the Year Award in the Structures, Greater than $10 million Category
• American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) 2012 Honour Award - General Design Category
• Sherbourne Common won 2011 Ontario Concrete Awards – Architectural Hardscape Category
• TCA’s “Best of the Best” Project Achievement Award - Medium Project Category, 2010