Toronto Union Station Revitalization | ?m | ?s | City of Toronto | NORR

The old John Street Pumping Station was in the middle of SkyDome, demolished in the 1980's. The new station, which is actually not on John Street, but on Rees Street, still pumps water.
 
Went for a meander earlier this evening and the new South Entrance looked to me to be maybe an hour's worth of hoarding-dismantling away from opening.

The exterior doors to the Plaza are now open and a bored security guard was posted to watch as few random souls bound for the Raptors game used them to first go into the vestibule space, and then turn right to pass through another set of doors into the ACC Galleria.

To your left after going in is another door into a retail hall in the Telus building, which appeared 100% finished but was keycard-locked when I went by. Access to the station is presently sealed off by temporary drywall hoarding straight ahead of the exterior doors. Immediately behind the hoarding (hurray for eyeball-sized holes) is a lengthy ramp that rises about 7 feet or so in elevation. At the top of that length of ramp is another drywall hoarding, and behind that is a landing that's back in active station space, complete with a GO train departures LCD that presently stares straight at the blank wall.

Once that wall comes down, you'd climb the ramp to a T-junction with further ramps left and right rising the remaining distance to get to the same height as the VIA concourse. As I alluded to earlier, assuming you make it that far you're very much set if you're bound for Platforms 24-27 or a VIA train, but it's a bit of a slog through some largely-unmarked passageways to get back to the majority of GO train country.

I can't imagine there's any real reason this ramp wouldn't be ready to open for Monday morning if TPTB were inclined to make it so.
 
Good news... when do they start? Will the station be ready for the PanAm Games in 2015?

With Union station referred to as the main transportation centre for the PanAm games, there's no way that Union will function properly while under construction.
 
MetroMan said:
Good news... when do they start? Will the station be ready for the PanAm Games in 2015?
Click to expand...

The major part of the work would start July 2010, York Concourse and NW Path Phase 1 completion June 2012, Bay Concourse and VIA Concourse completion November 2013, Lower Retail Level without tenants complete in December 2014, full PATH completion March 2015, and full project completion is scheduled June 2015. The November 2013 date and December 2014 date are the most important for the Pan Am games since on the November 2013 date all the waiting areas for trains will be done, and after the December 2014 date only tenant construction, minor work, and PATH completion would remain. Based on this schedule there aren't really any risks that Union Station will not be ready for the Pan Am Games.
 
Does anyone know where VIA is going to load trains during construction of their concourse? Will they be sharing York Concourse with GO during that period?
 
So the redevelopment includes the NW PATH expansion? I didn't realize they had even settled on an alignment for that. Can anyone post a link or briefly describe how the PATH will be routed?
 
Are there any other renderings for this project aside from the trainshed?
 
EnviroTO said:
The major part of the work would start July 2010, York Concourse and NW Path Phase 1 completion June 2012, Bay Concourse and VIA Concourse completion November 2013, Lower Retail Level without tenants complete in December 2014, full PATH completion March 2015, and full project completion is scheduled June 2015. The November 2013 date and December 2014 date are the most important for the Pan Am games since on the November 2013 date all the waiting areas for trains will be done, and after the December 2014 date only tenant construction, minor work, and PATH completion would remain. Based on this schedule there aren't really any risks that Union Station will not be ready for the Pan Am Games.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the detailed timeline. Having the Pan Am Games as insurance is comforting.

These are separate projects but what is the status of the Front St. district plan between York & Yonge? Is restoration of the façade of the station included in the overall renovation plan?
 
Thanks for the link. You're right, those have been floating around for a while. The renderings aren't bad, but there's certainly room for improvement.
 
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