Urban Planning | Imran Khalid | United States

September 17th, 1887: Toronto wins its first professional baseball title at Sunlight Park. At its peak, Canada's first baseball stadium held thousands of spectators and athletes, who came from miles around to pack the wooden stands. After industrial expansion claimed the park in 1913 and the Don Valley Parkway cut off the Eastern Avenue Bridge in 1947, the fifteen acre site became an isolated and inaccessible corner of East Toronto. The new Sunlight Park, beginning construction in 2020, seeks to reunite the disconnected communities of East Toronto through pedestrian and transit oriented design. 

Sunlight Station, a multi-modal transit hub connecting the Go-Transit Line from Downtown Toronto to the Eastern Suburbs, is the first step in the rebirth of Sunlight Park. East Harbor, a brand new, cutting edge business development bordering Sunlight Park, plans to bring over fifty-thousand jobs to the area, and the Sidewalk Toronto neighborhood promises a vibrant live/work district to the south. Sunlight Station, accessed from both Eastern Avenue and the new Broadview Avenue, stitches together the existing and new neighborhood and provides a central location for accessing trains, streetcars, ride-sharing, and the future subway. 

As Broadview Avenue connects communities to the north and south, the newly established Old Eastern Greenway and pedestrian bridge links the Torontonians of Sunlight Park to the thriving Corktown Commons and Downtown Toronto beyond. The existing steel truss bridge, abandoned since the 1940’s, is raised several feet in order to become the new pathway across the Don River. At the east end of the Greenway, attached to Sunlight Station, is an international marketplace where food vendors and artisans share cultural experiences. Travelling west, residents and visitors find a variety of shops and restaurants until they reach the heart of Sunlight Park: Sundial Plaza. Serving as a central gathering place for all East Toronto, Sundial Plaza looks to capture the spirit of the stadium that once attracted thousands. Concerts, rock climbing, morning yoga classes, dog walking and a variety of other activities occur in the plaza and the natural parkland beyond. In order to reactivate the riverfront, the parkland cantilevers from the flood protection landform over the Don Valley Parkway, giving pedestrians an observation point from above and the drivers on the parkway a peek at the activity above.

A variety of mixed use buildings, initially arranged in a grid then shifted and smoothed to soften sharp angles, provide a variety of housing and workplace environments for Sunlight Park residents. Market rate apartments, condominiums, and social housing are offered, along with a central hotel for business travelers and families visiting the surrounding neighborhoods. While the original baseball stadium no longer remains, the new Sunlight Park will reconnect and revitalize the East Side of Toronto.