The Toronto waterfront won’t be transformed into a Google-affiliated smart city after all.
Sidewalk Labs, the urban innovations unit within Google’s parent company Alphabet, announced Thursday that it is pulling the plug on its plans to redevelop a long-neglected section of Toronto’s Inner Harbour.
“[A]s unprecedented economic uncertainty has set in around the world and in the Toronto real estate market, it has become too difficult to make the 12-acre project financially viable without sacrificing core parts of the plan,” Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff wrote in a statement.
The Quayside plan was conceived as a model smart city, starting with a 12-acre development of mid-rise apartments and neighbourhood amenities that combined cutting-edge technology and data operations with leading ideas in urban design and sustainability.
