Explore Quayside's Public Realm: An Interactive Journey Through Our Design
In This Blog:
- Explore our immersive experience to see what’s on the horizon for Quayside, Toronto’s next ambitious waterfront community
- Learn about our approach to the essential infrastructure and public spaces that will support affordable housing at Quayside and future transit across the eastern waterfront
- Learn about the three themes guiding the design of Quayside’s public realm
- Discover how Indigenous placekeeping, accessibility, and ecological design are woven into the waterfront's next chapter
Toronto's waterfront has been a place of transformation for many decades, evolving from a post-industrial shoreline with underutilized land to series of vibrant communities and beloved destinations that are welcoming people to the water’s edge. Quayside is the next chapter in that story: a neighbourhood that will provide affordable places to live, reconnect people to the water, and add to the growing network of destinations across Toronto’s waterfront.
A transformation of this scale begins long before the residents move in. It starts with the foundation — the essential infrastructure and public spaces that enable a plot of land to become a thriving community. Because it is sometimes hard to picture significant change when it unfolds over years, we’ve created an immersive experience that brings the future of Quayside into focus.
Explore the Quayside Immersive Experience
Quayside: A Closer Look
Quayside is a 4.9-hectare master-planned community taking shape in East Bayfront, a cornerstone in the broader waterfront vision that will connect communities to the north and west with Ookwemin Minising to the south. And, as with all our projects, it has ambitious goals relating to affordability, design excellence, sustainability and community.
Waterfront Toronto is leading the design and delivery of the infrastructure and public spaces that will support the building of new homes, including servicing, new streets, and active transportation infrastructure. Then, our development partner, Quayside Impact, will build the homes and mixed-use community.
Guided by the Treaty Holders, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, and in collaboration with leading engineering firm WSP, landscape designers West 8 and DTAH, and Indigenous advisors from the MinoKamik Collective, the bold vision for the future Quayside community is taking shape.
The experience unfolds in chapters, each grounded in the themes defining Quayside’s public realm: leading with ecology, creating connections, and building memorable spaces. As you move through, you’ll encounter examples of how each theme comes to life in the design.
Leading with Ecology
One of the core design principles for Quayside's public realm is creating a continuous green edge that seamlessly transitions from the city to the natural landscape of Ookwemin Minising and the new destination park, Biidaasige Park.
Quayside's public space design leads with ecology and introduces the concept of the "healing forest" - a place of respite, quiet, and communion with nature amidst the busy city further reinforcing this green corridor.
Check out the green markers to see how ecology is informing the public realm, ranging from strategies for stormwater management to habitat trees. For example, the new Water's Edge Promenade will extend the red granite mosaic and tree canopy, key features of the existing waterfront promenade, while incorporating new features like open tree beds with layered and diverse plantings, the aim of which is to provide habitat for many local plants and animals.
Green markers guide visitors through the “Leading with Ecology” theme
Creating Connections
A key feature of Quayside's public realm is extending Queens Quay East and realigning Parliament Street. This work creates safer, more intuitive intersections, establishes additional development blocks for new housing, and supports the future road network and planned transit extending east along the waterfront.
Active transportation is also central to the design. Quayside will continue connecting the eastern waterfront to Ookwemin Minising through the Martin Goodman Trail, while local streets — both new and revitalized, like Small Street — prioritize pedestrians and cyclists.
Learn more about how we’re creating connections through expanding the orange markers, see the emerging street network and learn how the lakefill at the head of Parliament Slip is laying the foundation (which is already complete!).
Orange markers highlight how we are creating connections at Quayside.
Memorable Spaces
Quayside’s public spaces will be special, not just because they are situated at the water’s edge but because of the care that went into designing spaces that reflect ancestral history and foster a sense of belonging.
Indigenous placekeeping honours the relationship to the land through traditional plantings and intentional design elements. For example, glacial erratics (stones that differ from the local geology because they were carried and deposited by retreating Ice Age glaciers) protect planting areas, provide natural seating, and nod to the Indigenous histories of stone as the grandparent and connection of life.
Throughout the immersive experience, marked by dark blue markers, you can also explore how accessibility was considered from the start and is woven directly into the public spaces, creating a sense of belonging.
Blue markers reveal how Quayside’s public realm weaves accessibility, continuity, and cultural storytelling into the landscape, creating welcoming, memorable spaces rooted in history and sense of place.
Your Window into the Future
Quayside’s public realm is being built in two phases. This immersive experience highlights the first phase of work that is underway right now. The final chapter (Future Overview) offers a glimpse into what’s to come.
We invite you to explore this immersive experience, share it, and let us know what excites you for the future.
Start your interactive tour here
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