Toronto
ULI Toronto is one of ULI's largest district councils in North America. Toronto is also something of a financial capital for Canada, home to several large banks and investment funds.
One of nine supertall buildings under construction in Toronto, SkyTower will offer residential, hotel, and amenity space
Infrastructure Ontario’s Provincial Affordable Housing Lands Program aims to create a mix of market-rate housing and permanent, sustainable, affordable housing on surplus land in greater Toronto. For its first effort, the agency chose Dream Asset Management, Kilmer Group, and Tricon Residential to develop a mixed-use community with 2,500 apartments on a former brownfield industrial site.
Across North America, cities are confronting a housing crisis that demands urgent, innovative responses. In Toronto, the launch of the Rapid Housing Initiative (RHI) in April 2020 marked a pivotal moment—an accelerated effort at the height of the pandemic to deliver safe, stable housing. Since then, unprecedented investments have been made in communities across Ontario to address housing insecurity, reshaping the province’s residential landscape.
Canada’s real estate market is in the midst of a pivotal shift as the Bank of Canada (BoC) rolls back what has been “higher for longer” interest rates. Yet despite welcome relief on financing costs, real estate leaders are still moving somewhat cautiously amid uncertainty and fluid market dynamics.
Obsolete buildings will constitute up to 50 percent of all new housing in cities
The winners of the ULI Americas Awards for Excellence become finalists for the 2024 ULI Global Awards for Excellence, competing against projects from the Europe and Asia Pacific regions. The awards are open to projects and programs in the ULI Americas region that are substantially complete, financially viable, and in stable operation. The program evaluates submissions on overall excellence, including achievements in marketplace acceptance, design, planning, technology, amenities, economic impact, management, community engagement, innovation, and sustainability, among others.
Urban Land is spotlighting some trailblazing women in commercial real estate, all of whom are members of the ULI Women’s Leadership Initiative. Emma West, partner at Toronto-based Bousfields Inc., says it was the women who were part of the WLI Toronto Committee when she first joined who were instrumental in her professional development.
Uncertainty around asset prices likely to slow transactions.
Ten projects take advantage of financial tools that promote environmentally positive development
Ethnic and cultural diversity, combined with a reputation as a welcoming place for immigrants, has long been a strength of the Greater Toronto Area—and it has also influenced the city’s development, panelists cautioned at ULI’s 2023 Spring Meeting.
At the recent 2023 ULI Spring Meeting in Toronto, panelists noted that transaction volumes have dropped significantly with the slowing of lending and bank failures.
In the heart of Toronto, a revolution is unfolding underground. Beneath the bustling streets and towering skyscrapers, a network of pipes is tackling the climate crisis. The story of Toronto’s Deep Lake Water Cooling system and its potential to reshape the approach to sustainable development was told during a session at the ULI Spring Meeting in Toronto.
At a 2023 ULI Spring Meeting panel titled “View from the Top,” Tsering Yangki, executive vice president at Dream Unlimited, one of Canada’s leading real estate companies, with over $23 billion in assets across North America and Europe, spoke with WLI chair Ellen Klasson, managing director at RCLCO.
As the world struggles to deal with the threat posed by climate change, Toronto provides a template for how cities can dramatically reduce emissions at an urban scale, in a way that is sustainable from a business standpoint, according to panelists at the 2023 ULI Spring Meeting in Toronto.
Shopping malls, the once-bustling hubs of commerce and community, are now facing an uncertain future in light of relentless urbanization and population growth. But as the city evolves, so too must these giants. At the 2023 ULI Spring Meeting in Toronto, industry leaders tackled this very question in the panel titled “Reimagining the Mall: The Final Urban Frontier.”
Toronto’s deep-lake water cooling system stands as an example of the “third wave” of urban energy.
What ULI members need to know to ensure that revenues support equitable decarbonization of the built environment.
A recent ULI webinar—with member speakers from ULI Toronto, ULI British Columbia, and ULI Alberta—addressed what leading real estate companies are doing to decarbonize their operations and development in anticipation of regulatory requirements.
A half century or more into their service life, the need to retrofit and revitalize postwar apartment towers across Canada has never been more critical. Compounding the growing inequities laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic, much of the purpose-built rental housing is in need of renewal. Retrofitting costs—as well as financing retrofits while maintaining housing affordability—continue to be a primary barrier.
Seeking innovative ways to accommodate Toronto’s growing population, developers across the city are launching “mega-mixed-use” projects that are redefining urban living for generations to come.
Aging high-rise residential towers in the city of Toronto are home to nearly 13 percent of the current population, but are falling behind on maintenance. A ULI Advisory Services panel was invited to evaluate a range of solutions.
“Cities need to grow to thrive,” Dan Doctoroff said. “But we can’t take growth for granted.” Doctoroff is the chairman and CEO of Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet. Doctoroff was speaking at the 2020 ULI Europe Conference.
In the Waterfront Toronto RFP for Quayside, Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs saw a key opportunity for a demonstration project unbound by the conventions of traditional urban planning or real estate economics. This was something new: a chance to innovate at the urban scale, to develop, deploy, and measure the success of a web of new technologies in an actual neighborhood.
A graduate student team from Cornell University, two teams from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a team from the University of Maryland have been selected as the four finalists for the 16th annual ULI Hines Student Competition, an ideas competition that provides students the opportunity to devise a comprehensive design and development scheme for a large-scale site in an urban area.
In 2003, Waterfront Toronto, a tri-government agency, undertook the transformation of 79 acres (32 ha) of provincially owned brownfields in Toronto’s downtown east end. The West Don Lands project was designed through extensive community engagement and collaboration between government and the private sector. The result was an award-winning precinct plan for a pedestrian-focused community—built around parks, with housing for people of all ages, income levels, and abilities; well served by transit, retail, and community amenities; and developed in accordance with stringent sustainability requirements.
The following ten projects—all completed during the past five years—include facilities that strengthen pedestrian links to waterfronts, renovated buildings that open up interiors to views and daylight, and a converted JCPenney department store.
ULI Toronto’s second annual Urban Ideas Competition solicited proposals for revitalizing downtown Brampton, an ethnically-diverse Toronto suburb.
