The Downsview Complex is a provincial office site located in the Downsview neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
First developed in the 1950s during the construction of Ontario Highway 401 and residential neighbourhood from former farmland, the site is currently the location of the Ministry of Transportation's Toronto office (and part of the overall HQ staff) and the Ontario Provincial Police's Downsview detachment. Provincial driving test also takes place there.
In 2010, re-development of the site began, in a plan expected to be implemented over a 20-year span. [1]
First to be built was the new location for the province's Ontario Centre of Forensic Sciences and Coroner's office (re-located from downtown Toronto) on Wilson Avenue and Morton Shulman Avenue. [1]
Construction also began on a new Humber River Regional Hospital, which would replace two nearby hospitals (Church and Keele). [1] The hospital was scheduled to open in October 2015.
Other provincial offices will be built on the site. Many of the older Ministry of Transportation buildings located there will be demolished. [2]
The OPP detachment will remain on the site.
New roads will be built to provide easier access:
Downsview is a neighbourhood in the north end of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located in the district of North York. The area takes its name from the Downs View farm established around 1842 near the present-day intersection of Keele Street and Wilson Avenue. It now extends beyond the intersection of Sheppard Avenue and Dufferin Street, though it is popularly seen as including the areas to the north right up to the Toronto city limit at Steeles Avenue. The area includes several large post-World War II subdivisions. Within the area is Downsview Airport, the former site of Canadian Forces Base Downsview, which has since been largely converted following the end of the Cold War into an urban park known as Downsview Park. The airport is still used as a manufacturing and testing facility for Bombardier Aerospace. As of the 2021 census, the Downsview-Roding-CFB neighbourhood was split into the two neighbourhoods of Downsview and Oakdale–Beverley Heights.
Morton Shulman was a Canadian politician, businessman, broadcaster, columnist, coroner, and physician. He was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1925 to a Jewish family. He first came to fame as Ontario's Chief Coroner in the early 1960s. During this period, he also became a very successful stock-market player, and authored a bestselling book about how to make money in the stock market. In the mid-1960s he embarrassed the provincial government when he found them to be disobeying provincial health and safety laws. He was fired and then ran for elected office in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, avenging himself by beating a government Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP). He completed two terms as the High Park electoral district's MPP, and did not run in the 1975 Ontario general election. His fame grew in the late 1970s and 1980s when he hosted a nationally distributed television talk show called The Shulman File. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in the early 1980s and became a pharmaceutical entrepreneur specializing in treatments for that disease. Near the end of his life, he received recognition for his lifetime's work, when he was appointed to the Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian award. He died in Toronto in the year 2000.
Lawrence Heights is a neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located north-west of central Toronto, in the district of North York. The neighbourhood is roughly bounded by Lawrence Avenue to the south, Yorkdale Road to the north, Varna Drive to the east and Dufferin Street to the west. It is part of the greater Yorkdale-Glen Park official Toronto neighbourhood.
Henry Farm is a neighbourhood in the City of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located in the north central part of the city within the former city of North York.
The Toronto Suburban Railway was a Canadian electric railway operator with local routes in west Toronto, and a radial (interurban) route to Guelph.
Maple is a neighbourhood in Vaughan, York Region, Ontario, Canada. It is located northwest of Toronto. Maple was founded as the village of Maple, located at the intersection of Major Mackenzie Drive and Keele Street.
Sheppard Avenue is an east–west principal arterial road in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The street has two distinct branches near its eastern end, with the original route being a collector road leading to Pickering via a turnoff, and the main route following a later-built roadway which runs south to Kingston Road. To avoid name duplication, the Toronto portion of the northern branch was renamed Twyn Rivers Drive. The section of the street entirely in Toronto is (34.2 km) in length, while the Pickering section and Twyn Rivers Dr. is (5.4 km) long.
Weston Road is both a contour street and a north–south street in western Toronto and western York Region in Ontario, Canada. The road is named for the former Village of Weston, which was located near Weston Road and Lawrence Avenue West, in the present-day neighbourhood of Weston.
Keele Street is a north–south road in Toronto, Vaughan and King in Ontario, Canada. It stretches 47 kilometres (29 mi), running from Bloor Street in Toronto to the Holland Marsh. South of Bloor Street, the roadway is today known as Parkside Drive, but was originally part of Keele Street. It was renamed in 1921 by the City of Toronto.
Dufferin Street is a major north–south street in Toronto, Vaughan and King, Ontario, Canada. It is a concession road, two concessions (4 km) west of Yonge Street. The street starts at Exhibition Place, continues north to Toronto's northern boundary at Steeles Avenue with some discontinuities and continues into Vaughan, where it is designated York Regional Road 53. The street is named for Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava, who served as Governor General of Canada from 1872 to 1878. Prior to 1878 the street was labelled as Western City Limits or Sideline Road south off Bloor. In 2003 and 2007, it was voted as one of "Ontario's Worst 20 Roads" in the Ontario's Worst Roads poll organized by the Canadian Automobile Association.
Downsview Airport is an airport located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. An air field, then air force base, it has been a testing facility for Bombardier Aerospace from 1994. In 2018, Bombardier sold the facility to Northcrest Developments; in late 2023, Northcrest announced that industrial and airport operations would close by mid-2024, as redevelopment into commercial and residential properties moves forward.
Wilson Yard is the largest of the Toronto Transit Commission's subway yards and bus garages. The subway yard services subway trains on Line 1 Yonge–University. The facility is located on Transit Road north of Wilson Avenue, in the former city of North York, between Wilson and Sheppard West stations.
Humbermede, often called Emery, is a neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Humbermede, like many of the "Humber" neighbourhoods in the city, gets its name from the Humber River. It is bounded on the west by the Humber River, on the north by Finch Avenue West, on the east by the Highway 400 and on the south by Sheppard Avenue West.
York University Heights, also known as Northwood Park, is a neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of Toronto's northernmost neighbourhoods, located along the northern boundary of Steeles Avenue in the former city of North York. The neighbourhood is so named because it contains the main campus of York University. This area is most popular with immigrants of Italian and Chinese descent who have established communities in the area. It is located between Sheppard Avenue and Steeles Avenue east of Black Creek.
Clanton Park is a neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located in the district of North York, it is part of federal and provincial electoral district York Centre, and Toronto electoral wards 9: York Centre (West) and 10: York Centre (East). In 2016, it had a population of 16,472, a 12.7% rise from 2011.
High Park North, or often simply High Park, after the park, is a neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is bounded on the south by Bloor Street, on the west by Runnymede Road, on the north by Annette Street, Quebec Avenue and Humberside Avenue, and on the east by the GO Transit Weston Subdivision rail tracks. It is located in the Parkdale—High Park provincial and federal electoral districts. The area east of Keele Street is also known informally as the "West Bend" neighbourhood.
Armour Heights is a neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in the district of North York. It is bounded by Wilson Avenue to the south, Bathurst Street to the west, and the west branch of the Don River to the north and east. Highway 401 cuts through the centre of the neighbourhood.
The York University Busway is a bus-only roadway in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which stretches 1.8 kilometres (1.1 mi) from Finch West subway station to Dufferin Street. It is used by the Toronto Transit Commission's 939B Finch Express bus route.
Humber River—Black Creek is a provincial electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that has been represented in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario since 1999. Prior to the 2018 election, the riding was known as York West.
The George Jackson House is a heritage farmhouse in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located at 2950 Keele Street in the Downsview neighbourhood, it was designated as a protected heritage property on November 1, 2012.
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