The story of Berczy Park is the story of Toronto. It starts with a small downtown space carved out of a neglected site left over from the 1800s and ends with a 21st-century facility that forms the centre of a diverse high-rise community.

No one could have imagined how things would turn out on Front St. east of Yonge; the market, theatres, shops and office buildings are still here, but now they have been joined by condo towers and the thousands of people who inhabit them. Historic façades now sit beside structures so new the paint is barely dry.

Sharing the neighbourhood are families with kids, singles, seniors, workers, visitors and tourists. Some use the park to eat lunch; others want a playground or a place to walk their dog.

Reconciling these various claims is tough, but eminently do-able. At the same time, Berczy has grown tired and rough around the edges. Derek Michael Besant’s mural on the back of the Gooderham (Flat Iron) Building remains one of the best public-art pieces in Toronto, but the park itself had not kept up with the times.

Starting this week, construction on the new Berczy will change all that. When it reopens in the summer of 2016, the new Berczy will have a something for everyone — well, almost. In addition to a children’s play area in the northwest corner of the park, there will be a small section for dogs, benches and, most spectacularly, a huge two-tiered fountain awash with 27 cast-iron dogs, one cat and topping it off, the object of their collective desire, a bone.

“We wanted it to be whimsical and fun,” explains Montreal landscape architect, Claude Cormier, whose firm designed the fountain as well as the park where it sits. “It’s part of the identity of the city. This little park must cater to many different groups. It is the backyard for many people, a front garden for others. We have added a new plaza on the south side and a lawn where kids can play.”

The park will still be bisected by paths that cut through the site and the dog fountain will occupy the same spot as the existing water feature. Scott St., on the west, is also part of the scheme. When complete, it will be a pedestrian-friendly woonerf-like thoroughfare without raised curbs. A row of trees on the far (west) side of Scott will extend the park visually.

In other words, Berczy is being remade to reflect its growing importance as a local amenity much valued by residents. Though small, it is heavily used.

In its way, this is a project that could serve as a model for all Toronto. There will be no new High Parks, or Riverdale and Withrow parks. Large swaths of real estate are no longer available in this fast-densifying city. We must learn to take maximum advantage of small spaces such as Berczy. Though they will include grass, flowers and trees, they will also be hard-surfaced and designed to be used.

Then there’s the question of who pays. In this case, the $7-million budget came from developers under Section 42 park levies and Section 37 contributions. Given that Berczy’s beneficiaries will include people living in condos these developers build, that makes sense.

“The dogs shocked us a little at first,” admits City of Toronto project manager Jennifer Tharp, “but there are lots of families and people with dogs around here. We noticed that when we started community consultations. There isn’t enough room for a traditional playground, but we wanted it to be fun.”

What was empty fills up. What was a parking lot becomes a park. The location remains the same, but everything else has changed.

Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca