The East Harbour development brings 18 new mixed use towers to Toronto’s former Unilever Soap Factory industrial site at the confluence of the Don River and Lake Shore Boulevard. This area of Toronto is currently zoned for office use, but East Harbour would diverge from this by offering a range of commercial, residential, retail, food, cultural, and outdoor spaces, including an additional 4700 square meters of parkland. The development site is split into four quadrants delineated by Broadview Avenue running north-south, and a new street called East Harbour Boulevard running east-west. Density and height decrease from north to south, and west to east; a new transit hub connecting directly to downtown Toronto is in the densest northwest quadrant of the site.

The landscape design aims to create Toronto’s healthiest, most connected and accessible district founded on the site’s heritage of innovation and industry. To accomplish this, the design team incorporated resilient infrastructure, adaptable technology, and access to nature into the master plan. In addition to East Harbour Plaza, a focal point of the northwest quadrant, and a secondary transit plaza on the northeast, the design also features complete streets, retail and event plazas offering active and passive programming, and three new publicly owned parks. A buffer landscape along the west edge of the site provides some relief between the new development and the Don River, collecting stormwater and creating additional access to outdoors where city dwellers can connect to nature on a deep and sensory level.