This week, ULI Toronto visited One Delisle for a behind-the-scenes look at what we believe is this city's next global landmark. The tour sold out in under 24 hours, and it was great to see so much interest from our industry peers. For those of you who made it out, thanks for taking the time! Here are some photos from the event, all courtesy of Multiplex Construction Canada.
Toronto, by and large, does not like car-free urban streets. I mean, we have very few of them. Let's try and name them. The most notable would be the Distillery District. Next to this would perhaps be the intersection of Gould Street & Victoria Street on TMU's campus. Then there's Willcocks Commons at the University of Toronto, though it's not the prettiest.
After this, I can only think of small, unremarkable or temporary ones. I'm not counting seasonal closures. Technically, the Toronto Islands are the largest car-free community in North America, but I wouldn't call this urban. So I'm now at a loss. If I've missed any noteworthy ones, I would be happy to be corrected.
This concise list makes the recently revealed masterplan for the island formerly known as Villiers — now called Ookwemin Minising (or OM) — all the more exciting. The 16-block plan now includes a 760-metre-long, fully pedestrianized public space called Centre Commons. It runs east-west in the site plan below, and is intersected by a north-south street called The Sandbar Trail.
As designed, Centre Commons is expected to be the longest car-free street in the city and look something like this:
This is the space in between the buildings. Equally important is the fact that the new masterplan unlocks a 27% increase in finer-grained density, without compromising on the quality or quantity of public space on the island. This is a major improvement over the previous masterplan, which had all the hallmarks of bland pseudo-urbanism. Meaning, it was supposed to be urban, but it wasn't actually.
I love the above massing diagram because it feels like a real, organic city, as opposed to just a series of repeating towers on podiums. It has a variety of scales and a more fine-grained urban pattern. This, as we have talked about, is notoriously difficult to achieve in new master-planned communities. But it is possible: loop transit through the island, lower the parking requirements, and give developers the freedom to build.
The design team includes SLA of Copenhagen (landscape architects), Trophic (Indigenous-owned landscape architects), GHD (prime consultant and technical lead) and Allies and Morrison of London (architectural lead). And when built out, OM is expected to support approximately 12,000 new homes (including 3,000 affordable homes) and 2,900 new jobs.
I say we build it.
Cover photo by Allies and Morrison
Aerial image from Waterfront Toronto
Centre Commons rendering by Norm Li via SLA
Area plan and massing diagram by SLA
The Missing Middle Initiative just released its latest Greater Toronto Area and Greater Golden Horseshoe Housing Report Card. If you'd like to download a copy and see the generally abysmal grades, there's a link at the bottom of this page. But here are the high-level findings (based on Q4-2025 data):
Housing starts are down 34% year-over-year across the 34 municipalities covered in the report.
Condominium starts, in particular, are down over 50% year-over-year.
Pre-construction sales, which are a precursor to housing starts, are down 89% for condominiums and 58% for ground-oriented houses.
The only exception to the above is purpose-built rental starts, which increased 39% year-over-year. But this increase doesn't come close to offsetting the declines seen in both condominiums and low-rise housing.
Once again, we are reminded of the looming housing shortage that, I think, could be felt as soon as next year. New construction is inherently slow to respond to market changes, and, as of right now, the ship is clearly headed toward almost no new supply. For that to change, we will almost certainly need to see pre-construction sales return.
Cover photo by Dmitry Gerasimenko on Unsplash