Deterring urban sprawl, promoting transit, enhancing design excellence, quality of life, and sustainability. These are all things that Carleton engineering alumnus John Campbell (BEng/71) engaged head-on to help put a new face on Toronto.
Campbell retired this past December after serving as President & CEO of the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation (TWRC), commonly known as Waterfront Toronto, for more than 12 years. While he has handed over the reins of the project, his legacy lives on, having set the bar for innovative infrastructure planning and forward thinking architectural development in Canada.
The TWRC was established in 2001 as the largest urban revitalization project in North America. Currently estimated at $35 billion in total public and private investment, its aim is to re-establish a positive, meaningful relationship with the waterfront and to bring together the most innovative approaches to sustainable development, excellence in urban design, real estate development, leading technology infrastructure and the delivery of important public policy objectives.
When joining the TWRC in 2003, Campbell recognized that his role would be to establish a solid foundation for Toronto’s waterfront redevelopment, rather than to see the project through start to finish. “At the outset, you could see that this was a project that is going to go on for several decades,” he explains. “The company was given a 20 year life, but it will likely take 40-50 years to fully develop the waterfront because you can only develop as fast as the market can absorb it.”
With 2,000 acres of land, it’s no surprise that the TWRC’s strategy has been to take it one bite at a time. Campbell notes that, in order to be practical, the waterfront was divided up into precincts or zones that range from roughly 50 – 120 acres. These zones are developed one at a time, from the center out. “No one wants to live or work in an area that’s sort of remote from anything else,” he explains. “We choose to focus on precincts that are on the edge of existing areas.”
Given the time required to plan development, publically procure developers, negotiate contracts and undergo construction, the entire waterfront understandably cannot be built up all at once. This presents a challenge in determining how to leverage areas that have been earmarked for future plans. When assessing how economic development and activity in these zones could function in the short term, the TWRC has had to carefully consider what makes the most sense in the long run.
According to Campbell, the key is to permit development to happen in these areas, but not allow these activities extend beyond the point where they will conflict with future plans. “If you’re planning use of an area 5, 10 or 15 years out, anything that you put there in the interim has to have a short life,” Campbell notes. “You might allow a storage building, bus parking, or surface use, but you wouldn’t let a building go up that would require a 40 year amortization.”
Given the immense scale and long-term nature of the waterfront effort, the project has inevitably evolved over the years to include many components that did not exist at its outset. “I think where we may have helped evolve the project is by looking at the future and keeping it in view,” Campbell notes. “A lot of time and effort was spent assessing what will be important in the future and how those things could be integrated into our immediate and long term planning.”
It was this line of thinking that led Waterfront Toronto to install Canada’s first open access broadband system – an extremely affordable, ultra-high speed internet connection that can be accessed by all properties in the waterfront area.
“The internet is more important now than it ever has been, so we knew that developing the infrastructure to deliver reliable, affordable access right from the outset was key,” Campbell explains. “Going back and trying to integrate such a thing into existing construction simply wouldn’t be feasible.”
Forward thinking about needs that would inevitably arise in the future also led Campbell and his team to develop a sustainability framework in 2005 that would dictate waterfront development from thereon out. This framework would prove to be vital, as developers are typically more concerned with building what sells today, rather than planning for the long term.
Campbell’s team challenged that mentality by instituting mandatory design requirements for developers, such as necessitating that residential complexes mimic how office buildings are constructed. The key difference is that such buildings are designed so that the core and floor slabs establish a frame which can withstand all exterior wind-force, rather than having to rely on the added support of an interior’s layout. This allows the configuration and floorplan of a building to change over its lifespan as needed.
“If developers are building 500 square foot units with shear walls today, those units are stuck that way forever,” says Campbell. “But tenants move in and out and have different needs, resulting in a need for flexibility. If you build with no shear walls, it leaves the floorplan open to remodeling without compromising the structural integrity or safety of the building.”
Another example of design innovation is how the TWRC has mandated that all parking garages must be built with a minimum ceiling height and with level floors, rather than slanted. All ramps must instead be placed near the exterior of the complex. These specifications were not chosen for their aesthetics, but rather to prepare for the rise of autonomous vehicles, which the TWRC believes will result in a diminished need for parking garages. “To build something that has to be torn down in 20 or 30 years is simply not sustainable,” Campbell explains. “Instead of knocking these garages down and rebuilding from scratch, they can instead be repurposed.”
Campbell comments that his studies at Carleton proved to be incredibly beneficial throughout the evolution of his esteemed career. “Even though I studied civil engineering, the programming at Carleton provided me with an extremely broad and well-rounded background in engineering as a whole,” he says. “I found this tremendously useful when I went on to apply that knowledge to a career in business.”
Campbell also has a message for current students at Carleton. “In your career, follow your heart,” he says. “In order to do well and succeed, you have to like what you’re doing. If you’re going to spend a lot of time doing something, it’s extremely important that it’s something you enjoy.”
Before joining the TWRC, Campbell served as a member of the Board of Directors for the Toronto Board of Trade. He has also helmed Brookfield Management Services as its President & CEO, among numerous other prominent positions. However, he feels that his time spent with the TWRC has had the greatest impact of all his endeavours.
“I think it has opened people’s eyes,” he says. “Before we began, people didn’t realize that Toronto is a waterfront city.” Campbell also notes how the project has largely been about creating a quality of life that will allow Canada to succeed economically and remain competitive on a global scale.
“If we can establish a location that can attract and retain the best talent, then the city, the province, and the country can remain competitive and successful for the next century.”