The former footprint of a long-abandoned TTC bus terminal sits empty after almost a decade of construction chaos.
Eglinton Station’s original bus terminal was built in 1954 as a surface connection hub for what was then the northern terminus of Toronto’s first subway line. It operated for 50 years before a modern replacement opened to the immediate south in 2004, and would sit abandoned for another 12 years.
In recent weeks, this site has been cleared of construction equipment, signalling the long-anticipated end of a seemingly cursed transit project that has plagued midtown Toronto for over a decade.
Construction of the Crosstown LRT began in the summer of 2011, but it wasn’t until mid-2016 that the long-abandoned bus terminal was cleared ahead of its future use as an extraction shaft for two of the four tunnel boring machines (TBMs) that carved the line’s underground sections.
Launched in 2012 from a similar launch shaft dug in Keelesdale Park, the western pair TBMs carved 10-kilometre twin tunnels extending to just west of Yonge Street.
Years after the completion of tunneling for the line’s first phase in 2016, the site’s big moment arrived in 2020 when the TBMs were hauled out from below ground in parts via an extraction shaft on the former bus terminal site.
A full five years after this milestone was accomplished (and the year the Crosstown was initially projected to open), the former bus terminal site has finally been cleared of construction material as work on the long-overdue transit line finally wraps up ahead of a long-awaited 2025 opening
But even before the TBMs were pulled from the newly formed tunnels, and years ahead of the site clearance that just occurred, plans were already in motion to redevelop the former bus terminal site with a new high-density development.
Oxford Properties and CT REIT submitted a proposal to the City of Toronto at the tail-end of 2020, seeking to redevelop the 9.2-acre Canada Square property at the southwest corner of Yonge and Eglinton with a five-tower, mixed-use complex.
Those plans advanced in late 2022 with an updated scheme that parted ways with a world-renowned architecture firm, opting to work with local talent instead. The current proposal for the site calls for towers as tall as 65 storeys, and approximately 2,900 residential units.
