A Peek Inside The Canada Malting Silos & Bathurst Quay Revitalization

The transformation of Toronto's waterfront from an industrial hub to a livable community has taken decades of planning and construction. Most traces of the heavy industries that once lined the lakefront have long been erased, with only a few monuments left that remind us of Toronto's origins as a port city. Of the remaining structures, two monolithic silos bookending the downtown waterfront have yet to find a purpose in this new context, with the Victory Soya Mills Silos in the east and the Canada Malting Silos in the west still standing strong. These landmarks have been vacant and neglected for decades as the city has grown around them, but fortunately there is significant political will to reuse and revitalize both, and the rebirth of one of them is already underway. The Canada Malting Silos stand on Bathurst Quay at the foot of Bathurst Street, where many travellers may recognize the hulking concrete mass on their way to and from Billy Bishop Airport. The property is also home to the Corleck Building, a unique Art Deco structure completed in the 1940s, which was originally the administrative offices of the Canada Malting Company. These two structures are what is left of the Canada Malting Company's operations, who abandoned the site in the 1980s. The City has taken over the property since then, with the Corleck most recently serving as offices for PortsToronto, but the silos were left to decay and the remainder of the property left largely covered in asphalt. Read the full article at Urban Toronto