In Toronto’s historic St. Lawrence Market neighborhood—a part of town fondly refered to as “Old Toronto”—David Crombie Park has long been a staple of urban life. The linear park that stretches seven city blocks opened forty years ago and has since become an important node chock full of trees, community areas, and exercise equipment. But due to years of wear and tear, David Crombie Park is now in vital need of an upgrade.
The Danish landscape architect Stig Lennart Andersson (SLA) and Arcadis were recently tapped by the City of Toronto to think up a new vision for David Crombie Park. This week, the design team revealed what it has in mind.
SLA, Arcadis, and Indigenous-owned Tawaw Architecture Collective have conceived a plan designed to strengthen David Crombie Park’s main promenade, support active mobility, and introduce new adventurous routes through the space. Renderings show new cycling infrastructure and streetscape elements that integrate The Esplanade with Mill Street, and new routes to the Distillery District and St. Lawrence Market.
David Crombie Park’s revitalization marks the largest urban project in downtown Toronto in the last decade. According to the design team, their strategy “integrates Indigenous place keeping and enhances the historic and culturally significant green space in the heart of Old Toronto.”
Tawaw is designing placemaking elements for the project, including a safe, designated space for Indigenous community members to have a sacred fire. The collective—with offices in Calgary, Canada and Arizona—is also designing seven sacred teaching boulders in the children’s playground which will provide opportunities for visitors to learn the Anishinaabe language.
SLA and Arcadis made strides to retain David Crombie Park’s existing concrete walls, healthy trees, and sports courts. This emphasis on preservation is meant to reduce the park redevelopment’s embodied carbon according to Neno Kovacevic, principal of placemaking and landscape architecture at Arcadis.
“The use of Dynamic Carbon Modelling to quantify embodied carbon for the proposed development scheme of the iconic David Crombie Park is an essential component of the project’s design, ensuring we offset the project’s carbon footprint through carbon sequestration,” Kovacevic said. “Ultimately, the project aims to reach carbon neutrality 15 years after its completion and climate positivity every year after.”
Among the new elements added will be wooden seats, benches, and platforms. There will also be new natural planting and landscape zones that create a series of new, biodiverse habits for humans, local plant species, and animals alike.
The park redesign was recently approved by the City of Toronto.
Construction on the park and cycle track will start in spring 2025 and finish in 2026.
