A proposed hotel and music venue at Exhibition Place would lead to a reduction in parking during the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE), but not a reduction in event space, the Star has learned.
The development plan, which the city received in January, proposes a 32-storey, 370-room Hotel X and a four-storey, 5,500-seat venue fit for concerts, conventions and esports events.
It revises a 2022 proposal for a 30-storey hotel with a 7,000-seat esports-focused arena, and changes plans for the landscape and public realm.
The development site is south of Princes’ Boulevard and north of Lake Shore Boulevard, east of New Brunswick Way and west of the Stanley Barracks historic site and the Hotel X that opened in 2018.
The City of Toronto and the Board of Governors of Exhibition Place, a city agency, made a 49-year lease agreement for the hotel complex in 2009 with the option for the developer to lease additional lands to the west of the first hotel for a second hotel.
In 2020, the developer confirmed it would be exercising that option.
“We’re actually working on a concept plan for reanimating the entire grounds with this with the CNE, so they’re completely on board,” Don Boyle, CEO of Exhibition Place, told the Star.
“We’ll rearrange how the CNE, the events, take place, but really it’s about the reduction of parking availability during the CNE,” he said. “The rides, everything you’re used to at the CNE, there’s still plenty of space to do that, and we have plans to accommodate that.”
Exhibition Place has 25 tenants and runs more than 2,000 events a year, including the 18-day CNE, Boyle said. The new plans for the Ex are a continuation of it “reinventing” itself over the years to adjust to changes at the site.
The CNE and the developer did not respond to the Star’s request for an interview in time for publication.
The Hotel X development will also attract more conventions and meetings to Exhibition Place, Boyle said, noting many agents for such groups require meeting facilities to have hotel accommodations on site.
“By having now the additional 400 rooms, it allows us to compete for a lot of new business that we’re unable to today,” he said, adding the city and province can also benefit from companies that may be in Toronto for the first time.
The latest proposal was prepared by Armstrong Planning and Property Management for developer Harlo Capital.
Global esports and entertainment group Overactive Media partnered with Live Nation for the project, designed by global design firm Populous.
Boyle said Exhibition Place has been working with the developer to time the completion of construction with the completion of the Ontario Line at Exhibition Station and the potential development at Ontario Place, “so that they’ll all be synced to come in together around 2021.”
According to the latest hotel and venue proposal, the development set to be on portions of the Fort York historic site would provide a “visual exhibition” of the 1800s military defence base barracks.
The proposal responds to prior feedback from the city and aims to “better respond to the context of the adjacent Stanley Barracks, with massing and architectural expression inspired by a transition from the historic barracks through the venue and up to the hotel.”
For the public realm, it redesigns a northern plaza “as an active gathering space,” and improves pedestrian connections “with wind-mitigating landscape strategies, and enhanced accessibility through gently sloped plazas and reduced stair conditions.”
The design also “supports and emphasizes a direct north-south pedestrian link from the Exhibition Place GO Station to the site and further south to the pedestrian bridge over Lake Shore Boulevard West, RBC Amphitheatre and East Island.”
A significant setback from Princes’ Boulevard, it says, creates “considerable open space and a public realm.”
Parking would be on the surface and below-grade on the western, hotel portion of the site.
