Almost exactly 10 years after the federal government held a news conference in an old parking lot at the edge of Lake Ontario, with a pledge to put $25 million toward burying the parking underground and building public space over it, the vision has come alive.

On Sunday, Harbourfront Centre will officially open Ontario Square, a 53,000-square-foot space for public activities on the central waterfront. A few days later, on Canada Day, its companion, Canada Square, will open with a different mandate. It was designed as a green space for quiet reflection away from towering highrises.

“It’s one of the most beautiful locations in Toronto on the lake, and it’s been a parking lot forever. Our goal has always been to turn this into some wonderful public space,” Harbourfront Centre CEO William Boyle said.

The idea is that both squares will blend in seamlessly with a revitalized Queens Quay, a facelift expected to be finished in 2015.

“The overall design was done in concert to make sure it went along with the bigger vision of the whole Toronto waterfront revitalization,” Boyle added.

The project was launched with the federal government’s $25-million promise in June 2003. The grant was designated to build the underground parking lot at the foot of Lower Simcoe St.

Over time, the money was funneled through Waterfront Toronto, and Harbourfront Centre partnered with the agency to build the garage and Canada Square, Boyle explained.

Ontario Square was born when the provincial government gave a special cultural grant to Harbourfront Centre toward creating the space.

Respected New York-based landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh won a competition to design the project.

The 300-car parking garage opened in June 2012, after two years of construction.

“Any time you get rid of surface parking and replace it with public realm, you’ve made a great improvement,” said Christopher Glaisek, vice-president of planning and design with Waterfront Toronto.

This isn’t your typical, dreary underground lot. It includes electric car charging stations and a reflective glass art installation that shines light into the garage. It also has a light well that sends natural light into a typically dark space.

Trees are planted over the parking ramp, blending into the forest feel of Ontario Square and its 500 quaking aspen trees. It could have been an unattractive garage ramp, Boyle said, but van Valkenburgh transformed it.

Ontario Square features stone paving meant to resemble the spring ice flow in the harbour. In addition to hosting events, the square will offer a natural drop-off space for the many buses that ferry children and other groups to the Harbourfront Centre.

Canada Square, a 17,000-foot-space on the southeast of the four-hectare Harbourfront Centre property, has 41 Metasequoia (dawn redwood) trees with long green leaves that will turn a reddish brown in the fall.

It was designed, Glaisek said, to evoke a “Canadian lake landscape” on the edge of the water.

“It will be quite dramatic and create a nice shaded spot for people to relax on the waterfront,” Glaisek said.

In addition, Exhibition Common, a new adjacent outdoor photographic exhibition space, features as its first installation “Nine Rivers City: Toronto’s Extraordinary Waterways,” an exploration in photos of the city’s nine major streams.

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To celebrate the opening of Canada Square, Harbourfront Centre will have a Canada Eve fireworks celebration on the central waterfront on June 30.

Boyle hopes Ontario Square and Canada Square remind people that Harbourfront Centre is a 10-acre campus, and not just a building.

“It’s also the custodian of the central area of the waterfront,” he said.

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