Ontario Construction News staff writer
Construction started last week on the new Etobicoke Civic Centre.
The building will replace the municipal centre at Burnhamthorpe Road and The West Mall that was built in 1958 to replace the former Township of Etobicoke Municipal Hall.
The civic centre project has been awarded to MGAC Canada as the City’s project management consultant and Multiplex as the general contractor.
“The new Etobicoke Civic Centre is a landmark project that is part of a bigger vision to create a city centre in Toronto’s west end. I am excited to see this important development that allows residents to live, work and play in one place come to life,” Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow said at a groundbreaking ceremony.
Designed by Henning Larsen of Denmark and Adamson Associates Architects of Toronto as a state-of-the-art civic hub, the new Etobicoke Civic Centre will feature more than 508,000 square feet of accessible public-facing space with municipal office towers, a podium-level multi-purpose council chamber, a childcare centre, Toronto Public Library branch, a public health clinic for dental services and breastfeeding, fully equipped recreation centre, ceremonial rooms and public meeting rooms. An art gallery and retail spaces are included, leading out to an open civic square with a Sacred Fire Vessel.
Two-level parking will be built within the more than 260,000 square feet below-grade space.
The basement will house a district energy plant managed by Enwave Energy Corporation which will provide energy to the entire Bloor-Kipling precinct – making this Toronto’s first near-zero emissions community.
Also, the structure is targeting Toronto Green Standard (TGS) Version 3, Tier 4 and is aligned with the City’s TransformTO Net Zero Strategy to reduce community-wide greenhouse gas emissions in Toronto.
located on ‘block 4’ of the City’s Bloor-Kipling Block Plan that enabled the reconfiguration of the former Six Points Interchange or ‘Spaghetti Junction’. The $77 million investment to decommission Six Points unlocked almost 18 acres of City-owned land that was parcelled into seven mixed-use redevelopment blocks connected by a network of streets.
Once built, the new civic centre will be steps away from five Housing Now development blocks including 5207 Dundas Street West that broke ground in August 2023. These sites have been identified for additional rental housing development that will deliver at least 2,781 residential homes, 904 of which will be affordable rental homes.
The centrally located civic centre and surrounding housing sites will be flanked by more than 10,000 square metres of parkland and supported by existing and planned cycle lanes.
The foundational work to develop the new civic centre and broader Bloor-Kipling precinct was led by the City’s real-estate agency, CreateTO, which continues to oversee Housing Now sites in the area.
