Villiers Island is a 22-hectare (54-acre) area in Toronto's Port Lands being converted to an island. The project is a part of Port Lands Flood Protection Project by Waterfront Toronto. [1] [2] [3] [4] To prevent flooding from the Don River, a channel is being created to extend the river south and then west into Toronto Harbour providing another outlet and a more natural mouth for the Don River. The new channel effectively creates the island, which is also bounded by the Keating Channel and Toronto Harbour. Mixed-use residential development is planned for Villiers Island. [5] [6] [7]
The new island and Villiers Street are named for Major Villiers Sankey (1854–1905), a British Army officer and the city's early surveyor (1888-1905). [8] [9] Sankey was born in Ireland and came to Canada sometime after he passed his India Civil Service exams in 1872.
A full build-out of Villiers Island will feature: [5]
Plans for the new island show a greenbelt, and parkland, surrounding a developed central area. [7] The developed central area will be primarily residential. A new "naturalized" channel for the Don River will be created, while the existing Keating Channel will be preserved.
The new channel will have natural curves, and will have more natural banks, with natural plants that could provide habitat for migrating birds and wildlife. The channel will empty into Toronto Harbour at what is now the Polson slip. The Keating Channel had mooring for multiple freighters. Plans for Villiers Island included adding more natural looking curves on the Keating Channel's southern bank.
The island lies on former industrial land, first created through landfill. The area will be cleared but buildings considered to have heritage value will be preserved. [10] These will either be moved to higher ground, or left in declivities, when additional landfill will be used to raise the ground level two metres in the event of rare extraordinary flooding. [11] More recent structures will be demolished. [12] Some existing industrial uses have been moved to the main shipping channel to the south.
Just south of Lake Shore Boulevard, Cherry Street will be relocated slightly to the west with new bridges crossing the Keating Channel. The Don Greenway, a new river valley, is being constructed south from the Don River, crossing Commissioners Street under a new bridge, before turning west into Toronto Harbour. This new channel will allow high water from the Don River to flow move easily south by avoiding the 90-degree turn into the Keating Channel. [13] [14] [15]
There will be four new bridges providing three access points to the future Villiers Island. All bridges are being built by Cherubini Bridges and Structures in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, at a total cost of CA$100 million. All three locations will have provision for future streetcar service, which may be a future expansion of the proposed East Bayfront LRT. All four bridges will have the same esthetic design and each span will have a curved steel dome (designed by CIG Architecture of the Netherlands) rising over the road surface. The builder expects the last of the four bridges to be shipped in 2022. All bridge spans are pre-assembled in Dartmouth and shipped on a barge via the Saint Lawrence Seaway. [15]
The four bridges are as follows: [16] [15]
Bridge | Length | Width | Height | Weight |
---|---|---|---|---|
Cherry Street North (transit) | 57 metres (187 ft) | 21 metres (69 ft) | 10.21 metres (33.5 ft) | 340 tonnes |
Cherry Street North (road) | 57 metres (187 ft) | 10.21 metres (33.5 ft) | 450 tonnes | |
Cherry Street South | 111 metres (364 ft) | 21 metres (69 ft) | 11.15 metres (36.6 ft) | 790 tonnes |
Commissioners Street | 153 metres (502 ft) | 53 metres (174 ft) | 10.16 metres (33.3 ft) | 1,210 tonnes |
There will be a provision for three additional bridges in the future: [16]
On May 6, 2024, it was announced that another bridge called the Equinox Bridge will be constructed to connected the island to mainland Toronto. It will be in the shape of an "S" and have an array of fanning cables. [19]
Villiers Island is a product of Waterfront Toronto's Port Lands Flood Protection Project. As of 2020 [update] , water from the Don River make a 90-degree turn into the Keating Channel, creating a bottleneck for water and a risk of flooding. [6] To eliminate this bottleneck, a new channel will be dug to extend the Don River south from the east end of the Keating Channel, and then west between Commissioners Street and the Ship Channel. The new channel will be in a man-made naturalized river valley that will end at the north side of Polson Slip, the location of the new mouth of the Don River. The new Don River channel will effectively create Villiers Island. [5] : B, C
Just north of the Keating Channel, the existing Don River channel will be widened to eliminate a bottleneck causing flooding; this requires the lengthening of the bridge carrying Lake Shore Boulevard over the Don river. Weirs will be built south of the bridge to direct the waters of the Don River away from the Keating Channel and into the new southbound channel. After the weirs are installed, lake water would normally fill the Keating Channel. However, if the new channel cannot handle the water flow, Don River water could be diverted into the Keating Channel. The walls of the Keating Channel will be reinforced, and a wildlife habitat will be provided. [5] : N, T
The new channel will be the primary outlet for the Don River; the Keating Channel will be a secondary outlet if the need arises. There will also be a third outlet to be called the Don Greenway, to be located south-east of Villiers Island. This will be a spillway and wetland situated between where the new Don River channel bends from south to west and the Ship Channel. Normally, water in the Don Greenway will only come from the Ship Channel. However, if the new Don River channel cannot handle high water volumes, then that water would be allowed to flood the Don Greenway and flow into the Ship Channel. [5] : D
The island was first part of the "Ashbridge's Bay" wetlands around the original mouth of the Don River, connected to a sandbar that is now the Toronto Islands. By the turn of the 20th century, the marsh had become polluted, and the city filled it with landfill, and devoted it to industrial purposes. [20] Some of the early twentieth century landfill was polluted, contaminated with heavy metals or toxic chemicals. The industrial enterprises were also polluting, including acres of petroleum tank farms and berms of road salt.
The city had also canalized and straightened the lower reach of the Don River, so it flowed straight for 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from Bloor/Danforth to what is now Lake Shore Boulevard, where it made a right hand turn and ran 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) west into the Keating Channel. [20] This right-hand turn caused a significant build-up of silt and debris that had to be removed by the port authorities regularly to minimize flooding of the surrounding area after a storm.
By 2000, the area around the mouth of the Don River had declined in usage and significant areas were vacant. These lands were not developable due to the cost of remediating the polluted lands, and the lack of flood protection. To "unlock" the area for development, Waterfront Toronto proposed to "naturalize" the mouth of the Don River. [20] In conjunction with this, berms were built at Corktown Commons. The area between the Keating Channel and the new naturalized mouth would become Villiers Island, to be redeveloped for a mix of residential and open space uses.
In October 2017, the Port Lands Planning Framework and Villiers Island Precinct Plan were adopted by Toronto City Council. The Port Lands Flood Protection project is being funded by all three orders of government. [21] [22] The design for Port Lands Flood Protection was established through an Environmental Assessment, approved in 2015. [23] The Villiers Island Precinct Plan establishes design and development objectives for the area. The plan was developed by Urban Strategies Inc. of Toronto, with support from Arup and other firms, with the City of Toronto and Waterfront Toronto. [18]
In March 2020, lakefilling work was completed at the north-west tip of the future Villiers Island. The work would strengthen the dock walls at Essroc Quay to prevent their collapse during water surges. [24]
The Don River is a watercourse in southern Ontario that empties into Lake Ontario, at Toronto Harbour. Its mouth was just east of the street grid of the town of York, Upper Canada, the municipality that evolved into Toronto, Ontario. The Don is one of the major watercourses draining Toronto that have headwaters in the Oak Ridges Moraine.
The Toronto waterfront is the lakeshore of Lake Ontario in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It spans 46 kilometres between the mouth of Etobicoke Creek in the west and the Rouge River in the east.
Toronto Harbour or Toronto Bay is a natural bay on the north shore of Lake Ontario, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Today, the harbour is used primarily for recreational boating, including personal vessels and pleasure boats providing scenic or party cruises. Ferries travel from docks on the mainland to the Islands, and cargo ships deliver aggregates and raw sugar to industries located in the harbour. Historically, the harbour has been used for military vessels, passenger traffic and cargo traffic. Waterfront uses include residential, recreational, cultural, commercial and industrial sites.
The Leslie Street Spit, or officially the Outer Harbour East Headland, is a human-made headland in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, extending from the city's east end in a roughly southwesterly direction into Lake Ontario. It is about 5 kilometres (3 mi) long. The Spit is the result of five decades of lakefilling by the Toronto Port Authority. It was conceived as an extension of Toronto Harbour, and has evolved into a largely passive recreation area. Naturalization had not been planned but the process is now actively managed by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. A large portion of it is classified as an Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) and it is recognized as an Important Bird Area.
Lake Shore Boulevard is a major arterial road running along more than half of the Lake Ontario waterfront in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Prior to 1998, two segments of Lake Shore Boulevard were designated as part of Highway 2, with the highway following the Gardiner Expressway between these two sections.
Sunnyside is a lakefront district in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It includes a beach and park area along Lake Ontario's Humber Bay, from west of Exhibition Place to the mouth of the Humber River. The area has several recreation uses, including rowing clubs, sports clubs, picnic areas, playgrounds, a nightclub, a bathing pavilion and public pool. The area is a 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) long strip along the lakeshore, bounded by the Gardiner Expressway and rail lines, which separate it from the Parkdale, Roncesvalles and Swansea neighbourhoods to the north. The name originates in a local farm owned by John Howard, which was situated just to the north, on the location of the current St. Joseph's Health Centre hospital.
The Keating Channel is a 1,000-metre (3,300 ft) long waterway in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It connects the Don River to inner Toronto Harbour on Lake Ontario. The channel is named after Edward Henry Keating (1844-1912), a city engineer (1892-1898) who proposed the creation of the channel in 1893. The channel was built to connect Ashbridge's Bay to the harbour; later, the Don was diverted into the channel, and its river mouth infilled in the early 1910s.
The Port Lands of Toronto, Ontario, Canada are an industrial and recreational neighbourhood located about 5 kilometres south-east of downtown, located on the former Don River delta and most of Ashbridge's Bay.
The West Don Lands are the site of a neighbourhood under construction in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The area is bordered by the Don River, King Street, Parliament Street and the rail line adjacent to the Gardiner Expressway. It is 80 hectares in size. A former industrial area, the area is being rebuilt as a mixed-use neighbourhood.
Waterfront Toronto is an organization that oversees revitalization projects along the Toronto waterfront. Established in 2001 as a public–public partnership between the City of Toronto, Province of Ontario and Government of Canada, the organization is administering several blocks of land redevelopment projects surrounding Toronto Harbour and various other initiatives to promote the revitalization of the area, including public transit, housing developments, brownfield rehabilitation, possible removal of the Gardiner Expressway in the area, the Martin Goodman Trail and lakeshore improvements, and naturalization of the Don River. Actual development of the projects is done by other entities, primarily private corporations. The projects include a series of wavedeck walkways and gathering places designed by West 8 and DTAH.
The Toronto Harbour Commission (THC) was a joint federal-municipal government agency based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The agency managed Toronto Harbour as well as being responsible for major works along the Toronto waterfront. It built both Malton Airport and the Toronto Island Airport in 1939. The agency was founded in 1911 and operated until 1999 when the port operations were transferred to the new Toronto Port Authority (TPA), now PortsToronto.
The Cherry Street Strauss Trunnion Bascule Bridge is a bascule bridge and Warren truss in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located in the industrial Port Lands area, it carries Cherry Street over the Toronto Harbour Ship Channel and opens to allow ships to access the channel and the turning basin beyond. There are two bascule bridges on Cherry Street. The other, smaller bridge, crosses the Keating Channel, while this bridge crosses the Ship Channel.
Turning loops of the Toronto streetcar system serve as termini and turnback points for streetcar routes in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The single-ended streetcars require track loops in order to reverse direction. Besides short off-street track loops these can also be larger interchange points, having shelters and driver facilities, or be part of a subway station structure for convenient passenger interchange.
East Bayfront LRT, also known as the Waterfront East LRT, is a planned Toronto streetcar line that would serve the East Bayfront and Port Lands areas in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It would run from Union station under Bay Street and along Queens Quay and Cherry Street to a new Villiers Loop along Commissioners Street east of Cherry Street on Villiers Island. It would complement the existing 509 Harbourfront service that connects Union Station to Queens Quay west of Bay Street. Longer-term plans are to extend the East Bayfront line from Cherry and Commissioners Streets to the planned East Harbour Transit Hub along GO Transit's Lakeshore East line and the planned Ontario Line.
Cherry Street is a north-south arterial roadway in the eastern downtown of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is situated in a former industrial area, that is now the site of redevelopment. It connects Eastern Avenue south to Lake Shore Boulevard, then to the Toronto Port Lands district, and terminates at Lake Ontario at Cherry Beach.
The Cherry Street lift bridge over the Keating Channel was the smaller of two bascule lift bridges on Cherry Street, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The bridge spanned the canalized mouth of the Don River where it empties into Toronto Harbour. It was the fourth bridge at that location, before being replaced by the Cherry Street North bridge.
Corktown Common is a park in the south eastern portion of the West Don Lands neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada which opened in 2013. It borders the Don River to the east. It was built on remediated industrial lands to be the centrepiece of a new emerging neighbourhood in downtown Toronto. It also provides a barrier to flooding from the Don River.
Marie Curtis Park is a public park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located at the mouth of the Etobicoke Creek on Lake Ontario in the Long Branch neighbourhood. Marie Curtis Park was built after the devastating floods of Hurricane Hazel in 1954 destroyed 56 homes and cottages on the site, leaving 1,868 persons homeless and 81 dead. It is named after Marie Curtis, the reeve of Long Branch at the time of its construction. Long Branch at the time was a separate village; it's now amalgamated into the City of Toronto government.
Ashbridges Bay is a bay and park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located along Lake Shore Boulevard next to Woodbine Beach in the Beaches. The Martin Goodman Trail and boardwalk run through the park along the bay. The boardwalk runs 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) from Ashbridges Bay in the west to the R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant in the east along Lake Ontario. It was once part of the marsh that lay east of Toronto Islands and Toronto Harbour.
The Toronto Harbour Commission built a firehall at 39 Commissioner Street to help attract industrial enterprises to the newly reclaimed Toronto Portlands in 1928. It was integrated into Toronto's Fire Services as Station 30. It was sold to the Toronto Firefighter's Association. The Association moved, and sold the building in 2015.
On July 8th, thestar.com story, "Big Ideas: A new island to anchor the Port Lands" talks about Villiers Island, a project by TWRC, which aims to turn 54 acres of the Port Lands into a new lakefront area, complete with public art and streets lined with retail and mixed use residential properties. If the plan overcomes a long list of hurdles - including garnering at least $800 million in funding and an environmental assessment - the island will be created when TRCA rebuilds the mouth of the Don River. The move is part of a plan to protect Riverdale and the Port Lands from flooding.
The three bridges in question are the Cherry Street North Bridge (connecting Lake Shore Boulevard to Villiers Island); the Cherry Street South Bridge (connecting Villiers Island to the southern Port Lands); and the Commissioners Street Bridge (connecting Villiers Island to the eastern Port Lands). All three bridges are being designed by Entuitive, along with London-based Grimshaw Architects and SBP.
But Waterfront Toronto is confident Villiers Island — the first part of the development coming to the Port Lands — will be able to handle any flooding Lake Ontario and the Don River sends its way.
By reconstructing the mouth of the Don River, the city will form a new river valley which will direct water into the Keating Channel and the flood harbour, thus creating Villiers Island in the Port Lands.
Villiers Island, a project by Waterfront Toronto, aims to turn 54 acres of the Port Lands into a new lakefront gem, complete with public art and streets lined with retail and mixed-use residential properties
The Villiers Island precinct (formerly referred to as Cousins Quay) will be a stunning new waterfront community that embraces its distinct industrial functions and the spectacular new parks, public spaces and ecological richness that will result from the naturalization of the mouth of the Don River.
Villiers Island is planned as Toronto's first climate positive precinct. It will be developed as an innovative 'climate positive' community, demonstrating excellence in carbon reduction and sustainable neighbourhood design.
A new river valley alone doesn't take Villiers Island out of the floodplain. The grade of the entire area will have to be raised an average of two metres to ensure storm water doesn't breach the banks. This means parts of Commissioners Street, for example, will be raised by about six feet and rebuilt.
After 13 years on Cherry, T&T closed this January to make way for the a massive new district in the Port Lands.
Cherry Street will be realigned to the west of its current path and connected via a new bridge over the Keating Channel. A minor diversion will be created at the intersection of Cherry and Polson Streets starting in Spring 2020, ending in Winter 2021.
The three new outflows required the creation of multiple new bridge crossings. More traffic will be brought to the Toronto Port Lands area as it grows into a planned destination attraction.
Cherry Street North is the baby of the family. Of the four bridges — two at Cherry Street North, one each at Cherry Street South and Commissioners Street — that will connect the yet-to-be constructed Villiers Island to mainland Toronto, it weighs in at a paltry 375 tonnes over its 57-metre length.
The bridges are the first of up to seven eventually planned for the east Toronto waterfront area around Cherry Street where the Don River mouth diversion is well underway and moving towards the final phases of the $1.25 billion Port Lands Flood Protection Project.