After five years, and a handful of delays, the boarding is up and the Post City Magazines-led Heart Park project is expected to be completed next month.
About a year ago, the transfer of the Toronto Transit Commission-owned land — located at the corner of Avenue Road and Otter Crescent — stalled while the city awaited a contractor’s environmental report. The land was eventually transferred in November. Plans to complete the park by Aug. 31 of this year got delayed by watermain construction on Avenue Road.
Alice Wong, a senior project coordinator with the city’s parks, forestry and recreation division, said work cannot begin on the curbs and sidewalks until the contractor doing the watermain work is out of the area.
The arrangement now is to start working on the inside of the park first, and then do the outside when the contractor leaves.
Kit Kleiser, a local resident who is actively involved in the project, is extremely happy to see the park coming to life, and so are her neighbours.
“They’re so excited, I’m getting a lot of people knocking on my door,” she said. “It’s a real passion for all of us because we’ve lived in the neighbourhood for many, many years.”
Once completed, the heart-shaped park will be a low-maintenance and environmentally-friendly fixture, Kleiser said. Features will include an all-season flower garden as well as coniferous and deciduous trees.
Right now, the construction of the park is noisy, but she said the end result will be worth it. At one point before the project got underway, people were living in the bathroom of the old bus station, Kleiser explained. The walls were frequently defaced with graffiti and the windows were often shattered.
“People were parking illegally there, so it was becoming quite a hazard with children and if you’re walking your dogs,” she said.