I'm surprised they haven't reoriented Lower Sherbourne yet. Surely they will do it before completing the north part of the park??
Good question. The City expropriated a piece of the FedEx carpark in May 2011, I suspect the owner is fighting this. The documents sent to Council in May explain (
http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2010/gm/bgrd/backgroundfile-29555.pdf ):
"WT has been engaged in negotiations with the owner of the Required Lands for inclusion in the realignment of Lower Sherbourne Street since 2007. Unfortunately attempts to date to acquire the properties have proven unsuccessful. The primary reason for this is that the land owner has an outstanding appeal against the City regarding certain aspects of the East Bayfront Zoning By-Law, and does not want to deal with the realignment
issue in isolation.
Although negotiations with the owner will continue, in order to achieve the timelines required for the park completion and the construction of Lower Sherbourne Street to match the opening of Dockside Drive as a public right-of-way, WT has requested the City of Toronto to exercise the City of Toronto’s powers of expropriation. WT has no power to expropriate and so must rely on the City to do so."
The North Park is now being built right up to the edge of the existing road and the City has already passed the necessary ByLaw to close this section of Lower Sherbourne and make Lower Sherbourne a one way street southbound "while construction proceeds" so I suspect that it won't be long before the northbound lanes are closed and added to the park. When the road gets straightened out the street will be two-way again.
Added info from WT CEO Report to June Board mjeeting:
City Council recently approved applications to stop up and close a portion of Lower Sherbourne Street, thereby allowing for the completion of Sherbourne Park North by the end of 2010. They also approved a report supporting the expropriation of certain privately-held lands in support of the realignment of Lower Sherbourne Street, if necessary.
3
Management continues to negotiate with the land owner; however as the road needs to be constructed in 2011 it was deemed necessary to have this option.