West Don Lands named as Pan Am Games village site

By Eric Morse —

Cindy Wilkey, George Smitherman, Pam McConnell and Connie Yang at the April 26 announcement.

The development site south of King St. E. and east of Cherry St., better known as the West Don Lands, has been selected as the proposed Athletes’ Village for the 2015 Pan American and Parapan Games bid currently being advanced by the GTA and Golden Horseshoe region.

The site’s selection was announced by George Smitherman, Toronto Centre MPP and deputy premier and minister of energy and infrastructure, Margaret Best, minister of health promotion, the Hon. David Peterson, chair of Toronto 2015 Pam American Games bid, and John Campbell, president and CEO of Waterfront Toronto, on April 26.

If the bid—to be decided this fall—succeeds, the proposed village could accommodate up to 8,500 athletes and team officials in a single, centrally located area, and is proposed to include sport and recreation facilities such as a recreation centre, a 50-metre pool, a 400-metre track, parkland and walking, running, and cycling trails, plus retail, service and entertainment spaces and specialized facilities for games and village administration that would be converted to community use post-games.

David Peterson, John Campbell, volunteer Julie Beddoes, and Margaret Best,

After the games, the village is planned to become part of a new community of affordable housing and market units already slated for the West Don Lands. The village scheme could add as many as 2,100 more housing units to the currently planned development.

Smitherman and Best noted that using the West Don Lands for the village complements Waterfront Toronto’s pre-existing revitalization effort and capitalizes on the opportunities that hosting the Pan Am Games presents. It would also ensure that the site clean-up and a significant portion of land development occur by 2015, several years earlier than currently envisioned.

“The West Don Lands are poised to become one of the most exciting new neighbourhoods in Toronto. As part of the Ontario government’s commitment to revitalizing Toronto’s waterfront, we are creating an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable waterfront community there, and the Pan American village is certainly part of that plan,” said Smitherman.

An artist’s rendering shows the completed village.

Toronto is competing against Colombia, Bolivia and Peru. The 2015 Games will be awarded at a session in Guadalajara, Mexico to be held at a time to be confirmed between July and October of this year.

Cindy Wilkey has been involved with the West Don Lands project since 1997 as a member of the West Don Lands Committee, a coalition of residents, businesses, environmental and heritage groups advocating for positive development of the area. “We have had discussions with Waterfront Toronto, with George Smitherman’s office and bid team,” Wilkey reports. “Our major concern is that whatever happens here has to serve the long-term interests of the community, so the plans for the athletes’ village have to be consistent with the work that has already been done.

This Waterfront toronto photo shows construction crews already at work on the West Don Lands site.

“We are satisfied that there is a very strong commitment to use the precinct plans already developed in consultation with the community. We think it’s very important that Waterfront Toronto remain central in the planning process. As far as we know not all of these decisions have been made as of yet, but we are very encouraged by what we’ve seen to date.”