Interventions to Protect
Canada Malting Silos, ACO NextGen Design Charrette 2014
Fifteen original 37 metre silos built in 1928; additional 46 metre storage bins built 1944.
Building such structures in concrete was an innovation in 1928, introduced to avoid the proneness to fire of wooden silos. Abandoned in the 1980s, they were designated heritage and have been candidates for adaptive reuse since. Conversion to a music museum or a Museum of Toronto have been suggested but they remain out of use, western bookends to the Victoria Soya Mills Silos at the east end of Toronto Harbour.
The Canada Malting Silos design charette suggestions included: hydroponic farming (plants to be grown not identified), diving school, climbing school, hotel with cylindrical rooms above cylindrical galleries.
June 8, 2017 City of Toronto Bathurst Quay Neighbourhood Plan Interim Report recommends “further analysis of adaptive reuse of the Canada Malting Silos site and Marina Quay West that would combine a cultural and community services hub, an underground parking and transportation facility, a City aquatic facility and accessory uses. Staff are of the view that the Canada Malting Silos site is too constrained to support large scale residential or mixed use development as a means of funding heritage conservation and infrastructure.”
In 2021, Bryan Bowen from the City of Toronto was nominated for the Carlos Ventin Award for Municipal Heritage Leadership, for his behind-the-scenes work to conserve and adaptively reuse the Canada Malting Silos.
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