Toronto is building a brand new park downtown. Here's what it will look like

A bird’s eye view of Wàwàtesí looking south. (City of Toronto supplied image)

Visitors to a future park in Toronto’s Entertainment District will enjoy a woodland experience without having to leave downtown Toronto.

On Monday, the City of Toronto revealed the winner of an international design competition for a new 0.65-acre green space planned for the site of a former surface parking lot at 229 Richmond St. W., just west of John Street.

The winning design concept, called Wàwàtesí, or “firefly” in Anishinaabemowin, was submitted by West 8 Urban Design and Landscape Architecture in collaboration with several other partners.

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The city says that the chosen design will include a “stream-like trail” that will lead park goers “along seven stepping stones corresponding to different park program elements, each with their own experiential quality.”

It said that the chosen design “will transport visitors through a woodland experience, all while in a downtown neighbourhood surrounded by high-rise buildings.”

There will be a natural firefly habitat, a cedar accent tree, a fern garden and a slide made from recycled steel, among other features.

The plan is for Wàwàtesí to be the city’s first park with a curator and its own tailored calendar of arts events and installations.

The new green space, which has a design and construction budget of $10 million, will also integrate culture, public art, landscape, light and space for performances, and aims to be an “engaging green oasis for visitors, residents and those who work in the area to enjoy,” the city said.

An estimated 68,000 people live and/or work within a 0.5-kilometre radius of the new green space.

The team behind this concept will develop a more detailed site design over the next two years. The public will be welcome to get involved in this process in 2024.

The selection of Wàwàtesí was done through a two-stage design competition held from January to March 2023. Submissions were evaluated by a panel of landscape architecture, Indigenous place keeping, architecture, urban design, art, and climate resilience experts who examined each applicant’s ability to meet the evaluation criteria and technical requirements, the city said in a release, and shortlisted five team who were invited in June to participate in the second stage.

In October 2019, Toronto City Council approved the acquisition of 229 Richmond St. W. to address the “growing demand for parkland in the rapidly expanding neighbourhood.”

Used as a surface parking lot since the early 1980s, this site is currently being used by a restaurant and has an as an open-air patio with dining and social activities.

Construction on the still-unnamed downtown new park is set to begin in 2025. The work is expected to be completed by 2026.

The public will be invited to help select the new green space’s permanent name, but that will occur at the later stages of the project, the city said.