Quayside was once going to be Toronto's high-tech neighbourhood of the future — now it's taken another unexpected turn
It was once envisioned as a tech-driven neighbourhood of the future, then a cluster of new lakeside condos. Now, the emerging Quayside redevelopment on Toronto's eastern waterfront is posed to become a renters' playground.
Before the pandemic, this 4.9-hectare slice of land near Queens Quay East and Parliament Street was proposed to become a splashy, controversial 'smart neighbourhood' by U.S. firm Sidewalk Labs, a sister firm to Google. After that plan was scrapped, the reins were handed to a team of Toronto-area builders, who mostly planned to build condos, plus a few hundred lower cost rental units. But now, facing a citywide condo market collapse, all but one of the first phase condo sites have been converted to purpose-built rentals.
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