Toronto's reimagined waterfront with new condos, parks, and trails. Master-planned Bayside community, Sugar Beach, and future LRT connections steps from the lake.
Queens Quay East stretches from Yonge Street to Parliament, anchoring Toronto's reimagined waterfront. This is where the city's industrial port has transformed into a mixed-use community with new condos, office buildings, parks, and public spaces. The East Bayfront area (Jarvis to Parliament) is where the most recent wave of development is taking place, led by Waterfront Toronto and developers like Tridel, with the Bayside Village community already established and major projects underway. You're steps from the lake, connected by the 20-kilometre Martin Goodman Trail, and surrounded by reminders of the area's past: the Redpath Sugar Refinery still operates here, and heritage grain silos mark the eastern edge. It's urban, evolving, and designed with sustainability in mind.
This is condo territory, almost exclusively high-rise towers built within the last decade. Tridel's Bayside buildings (2017–2025) dominate the residential landscape and carry strong reputations for build quality. Pier 27 condos (Cityzen/Fernbrook, 2013–2021) sit closer to Yonge with multiple phases and bridge connections between buildings. Sugar Wharf (Menkes, completed 2024) offers newer units but has had a rough start as a new building. Aqualuna has brought ultra-luxury units to market. Ground-floor retail is still finding its footing, vacancies remain as the neighbourhood fills in.
This is Toronto's biggest waterfront bet since we lost the 2008 Olympics bid, and the vision is ambitious, but you're buying into a construction zone for the foreseeable future. If you want a finished neighbourhood with established restaurants and walkable retail, wait a few more years. If you want waterfront access, new builds, and proximity to downtown at today's prices, this is your moment, just stick with Tridel's Bayside buildings and avoid Sugar Wharf until they sort out property management. The bones are good here: trail access, parks, transit coming, and genuine commitment to sustainability. But the streetcar and Queens Quay extension will be messy, retail is lagging, and the only grocery store is already overwhelmed. This neighbourhood will be great, it's just not quite there yet.
Toronto's waterfront was built for industry, not people. The city filled in Lake Ontario four times over a century to expand docking capacity, pushing the shoreline 350 meters south and creating Front, Harbour, Lakeshore, and finally Queens Quay. Workers commuted in via the Gardiner and DVP because nobody wanted to live near the soot and smoke. When cities worldwide started reclaiming their waterfronts in the 1970s, Toronto was slow to act until the 2008 Olympics bid forced a plan; we lost to Beijing, but the government created Waterfront Toronto in 2001 to lead the transformation anyway. The East Bayfront sat as empty industrial land (surface parking, tent cities, failed Home Depot proposals) until Tridel and Hines broke ground on Bayside in the 2010s. Today's towers, parks, and pedestrian infrastructure are the product of that master plan, with Redpath Sugar and the grain silos standing as reminders of what this land used to be for.