The Harbourlands Vision
A Place People Want to Be.
One Harbour. Many Places. One Connected Experience.
Great cities are places people want to be.
Harbourlands imagines a livable, connected, year-round waterfront where people can gather, play, explore, celebrate and experience nature—strengthening Toronto as a place to live, work, visit and invest.
Harbourlands would not turn the waterfront into one place. It would connect many distinctive places into one extraordinary experience.
A Place to Belong
Harbourlands would give a growing, denser Toronto something increasingly valuable: generous public space where people can spend time together without needing to buy a ticket.
Families could play. Friends could meet. Older residents could walk by the water. Children could explore nature. Runners, cyclists and swimmers could move through one connected landscape.
The measure of a successful city is not only how many people it attracts, but how well it allows them to live.
Conceptual rendering
A Great Park at the Heart of the Harbour
Former airport lands could one day extend Toronto Island Park westward, creating beaches, trails, lawns, playgrounds, habitat and cultural spaces within minutes of downtown.
The result could be something increasingly rare in a growing city: a large public landscape close enough to be part of everyday life, yet big enough to feel like an escape from it.
A Place Connected and Accessible
Toronto’s Islands have always been close, yet difficult to reach.
Harbourlands imagines a waterfront where people can move easily between the city, the islands, and the Port Lands by transit, walking, and cycling.
New connections across the harbour gaps could allow the downtown waterfront to function as one continuous public realm—from Exhibition Place to Tommy Thompson Park—while preserving harbour navigation.
The connections would unite the waterfront without erasing the character of its districts.
A Place Alive in Every Season
The world’s greatest waterfronts don’t hibernate. They evolve with the seasons.
Toronto’s waterfront should not become quiet after Labour Day.
Spring gardens, summer beaches, autumn festivals and winter trails would give residents and visitors reasons to return throughout the year—supporting public life, tourism and local businesses in every season.
A four-season waterfront creates four-season public life.
Parks, trails, culture, events and attractions could give people reasons to return throughout the year.
A Place to Discover
Connected from Exhibition Place to Tommy Thompson Park
Harbourlands would connect the waterfront without making every place the same.
Exhibition Place and Ontario Place would anchor sports, concerts and major events. Harbourfront would bring culture and city life to the water. Toronto Island Park would remain the heart of family, nature and recreation. The Port Lands would support conventions, festivals and hospitality. The Hearn and Tommy Thompson Park would form a dramatic cultural and natural eastern edge.
Each district would become more distinctive—and easier to experience as part of the whole.
A Place the World Wants to Be
Conventions · Festivals · Exhibitions · Tourism · Architecture
People travel to cities for experiences they cannot find elsewhere.
Harbourlands could combine Toronto’s skyline, harbour, islands, parks, culture, festivals and major events into one destination. It could anchor conventions and exhibitions, supported by hotels, restaurants and public spaces overlooking the city and lake.
The same waterfront investment that improves residents' lives would give visitors more reasons to come, stay longer, and return.
The setting would be the attraction.
A Place with History Remade
Successful cities do not erase their industrial past. They transform it. London transformed the Battersea Power Plant. Now it serves as Apple UK’s HQ.
The decommissioned Hearn generating station could become a similar cultural icon. It could anchor the eastern Harbourlands—a place for performances, exhibitions, markets and festivals while preserving one of Toronto’s most powerful industrial landmarks.
A serious redevelopment proposal already exists for the Hearn; Harbourlands is about ensuring that it can become part of a larger connected waterfront.
Harbourlands would grow from Toronto’s real geography and history—not from invented placemaking.
Harbourlands would not simply connect the waterfront.
It would create a place where Toronto comes together.
