Over the years Regent Park has been in the news for many reasons, and over the years those reasons have made a turnabout, from stories of trouble to ones of hope, and now to ones of results. We have a big results story for you tomorrow about a major opening coming up this weekend, but we thought today that we would remind you of some of the other work going on at Regent Park now to further its transformation into a vibrant and attractive community that anyone would be proud to call home.

Regent Park is so big that it's difficult to take in all of what's going on. Divided into 5 phases and subdivided beyond that, owing to the nature of the development process, one phase can still be going while the next is getting under way. Without being exhaustive, this article means to show some of what's going on now, to give you a fuller picture. The first thing to know is that each phase contains a mixture of affordable housing and market housing, and a mixture of low-rise townhomes, mid-rise podiums, and high-rise towers. All of it is being built by The Daniels Corporation, with their branded projects being the market condominiums, while the affordable units are being delivered to the Toronto Community Housing Corporation, or TCHC.

Regent Park phasing plan: 2 is part way, while 3 is starting, image courtesy of TCHC

We can state that Phase 1, shown in purple above, is complete. Phase 2, shown in green above is part way complete, while portions of it have yet to get going, while Phase 3, shown in blue (with a piece of it in the upper left corner) is just getting under way.

Buildings coming down for Phase 3, while Phase 2 rises behind it, image by Craig White

What's under way in Phase 3 is the demolition of holder homes in the southeast corner of the site, on what are referred to as Blocks 28 and 30 in the map above (click on it to enlarge it). The rest of the Phase 3 demolition will follow block by block over the next year. Meanwhile at the back of the image above, you can see some of the towers of Phase 2, specifically the double-towered One Park Place project (with the South Tower still to be completed at left), while Paintbox, an earlier project, rises between them.

Looking down from One Park Place over more of Phase 2 towards Downtown Toronto, image by Craig White

Earlier this year we had a chance to go to the top of One Park Place, and we took in this view west towards Downtown. Before us at the bottom of the image are the remaining blocks of Phase 2 still under development. Block 22, designed by Giannone Petricone Associates, is the most prominent development in that image. A new TCHC building, it has recently topped out, with new townhomes to be built behind it shortly. To its right is Block 21. Shown as a mostly empty site with some cars and construction trailers parked, this is the site for the next Daniels market condominium. To the left of Block 22 is Block 23, the last block of Phase 2 to go under construction.

At the bottom of the photo you can see the green play field of Nelson Mandela Park Public School. To the left of the play field is a new community centre for Regent Park under construction. The current community centre is to the right of the play field; its white parapet wall traces out the shape of its roof in the image above. When the new community centre is complete, the old one will close and be demolished. Its place will be taken by the architectsAlliance-designed Block 24 TCHC building, shown below.

Block 24 at Regent Park, designed by architectsAlliance, to be the next TCHC building

Below is a fuller picture of the new community centre construction site at Nelson Mandela Park Public School…

New Regent Park Community Centre under construction beside Nelson Mandela Park Public School, image by Craig White

…and here's a shot, back a ground level, showing further progress on Block 22 in behind.

Playground at Nelson Mandela Park Public School with Block 22 under construction to the west, image by Craig White

So that's what's going on now, with one big exception; the new park about to open in the centre of it all. We will be back with more on that soon.

Want to know more about Regent Park? UrbanToronto's Projects and Construction section has threads covering each phase of work. You will find the Phase 1 thread here, Phase 2 here, and Phase 3 here. Want to know more about current market condos in Regent Park? Click on our dataBase file for One Park Place, linked below. Want to talk about the neighbourhood? Leave a comment in the space provided on this page.