Today, Waterfront Toronto and the City of Toronto Parks, Forestry and Recreation will unveil shortlisted design proposals from an international design competition for York Street Park and Rees Street Park. Five design proposals will be on display for each park in the Rotunda at Toronto City Hall, so that members of the public will have the opportunity to take a look and provide their feedback. The exhibition opened to the public as of 9 AM today. It closes at 5 PM on Tuesday, July 17.

York Street and Rees Street Park Design Competition, Image via submission to City of Toronto

York Street Park and Rees Street Park will be the two newest additions to the Toronto’s growing collection of beautiful and sustainable public spaces along the City’s main waterfront boulevard, Queens Quay. Located at the southern foot of York Street and Rees Street, these two parks will be designed to respond to the pressing issues of our growing City and the Central Waterfront and South Core neighbourhoods.

The design competition challenged international design teams to strike a balance between the needs of local residents, a growing daytime population of office workers and visitors as part of Toronto's vibrant waterfront parks system.

Context map showing both York street and Rees street parks, image via Waterfront Toronto

"These two new parks will exemplify the innovative ways we're addressing the needs of our growing downtown," said Mayor John Tory. "I encourage residents and visitors to come out to take a look at the design proposals and share feedback that will shape these spaces for years to come.

The design proposals on exhibition have been created by:

York Street Park

Rees Street Park

By the end of this week, Torontonians will also have the ability to explore the design proposals and provide their feedback online, as a new website for the design competition will be announced via Waterfront Toronto’s Facebook page, Twitter and newsroom later this week.

Following the exhibition of the design proposals and the public comment period, the competition jury (consisting of leaders in design and art) will be brought together in the early fall to recommend a preferred design proposal for each park. Following the jury’s recommendation, Waterfront Toronto will award design contracts to the two winning design teams and begin detailed design development of the parks. Construction of the York Street Park is expected to commence first in 2019, with Rees Street Park following in 2020.

For more information, please visit the project page. We will return with updates as further details on these spaces are released. Want to get involved in the discussion? Visit the associated linked Forum pages for the York Street and Rees Street parks, or leave a comment in the space provided below.