About
Sidewalk Toronto is a joint effort by Waterfront Toronto and Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs to create a new kind of mixed-use, complete community on Toronto’s Eastern Waterfront, beginning with the creation of Quayside.
Sidewalk Toronto will combine forward-thinking urban design and new digital technology to create people-centred neighbourhoods that achieve precedent-setting levels of sustainability, affordability, mobility, and economic opportunity.
Waterfront Toronto
Waterfront Toronto was established in 2001 by the Government of Canada, Province of Ontario, and the City of Toronto to lead the renewal of the city’s waterfront in becoming a world-class archetype of post-industrial innovative urban development.
Site
Sidewalk Toronto will begin with a new neighbourhood, called Quayside, located at Parliament Slip, just southeast of Downtown Toronto. Sidewalk Labs and Waterfront Toronto aim to bring the innovations advanced at Quayside to scale across the Eastern Waterfront, more than 325 hectares (800 acres) that represent one of North America’s largest areas of underdeveloped urban land.
Sidewalk Labs
Sidewalk Labs is an Alphabet company that uses new technology to address big urban challenges and improve quality of life in cities, bringing together the urbanists who led New York City’s post-9/11 revival with the technologists who made Google one of the world’s most innovative companies.
Process
After exploring opportunities all over the world, Sidewalk Labs responded to a Request For Proposals issued in March 2017 by Waterfront Toronto to identify an innovation and funding partner. Following a rigorous evaluation process involving several local and international firms, Waterfront Toronto selected Sidewalk Labs.
Throughout 2018, extensive public consultation and stakeholder engagement will inform and help shape Sidewalk Toronto’s Master Innovation and Development Plan, including public policy and regulatory impacts. The Plan will be subject to approval by the boards of both Waterfront Toronto and Sidewalk Labs. Its implementation will require a variety of municipal and governmental approvals.
Objectives
- Establish a complete community that improves quality of life for a diverse population of residents, workers, and visitors.
- Create a destination for people, companies, startups, and local organizations to advance solutions to the challenges facing cities, such as energy use, housing affordability, and transportation.
- Make Toronto the global hub of a rising new industry: urban innovation.
- Serve as a model for sustainable neighbourhoods throughout Toronto and cities around the world.
