Infrastructure Ontario and the Ministry of the Attorney General have awarded a fixed-price contract to EllisDon Infrastructure to design, build, finance, and maintain the new Toronto courthouse project located just to the north of Toronto’s City Hall at 10 Armoury Street, bordered by Centre Avenue and Chestnut Street.
The contract is valued at approximately $956.4 million, which reflects the payments made during construction, the substantial completion payment, and the monthly service payments before inflation adjustments. This figure does not reflect the total project cost.
IO and MAG selected EllisDon Infrastructure after extensive evaluations following an open, fair, and competitive request for proposals process that began in October 2016.
The EllisDon Infrastructure team includes:
- Developer: EllisDon Capital Inc.
- Constructor: EllisDon Design Build Inc.
- Design Team: Renzo Piano Building Workshop and NORR Architects & Engineers Limited
- Facilities Management: EllisDon Facilities Services Inc. and SNC Lavalin O&M
- Financial Advisor: EllisDon Capital Inc.
With the award of the contract, the construction is expected to start in the next few months, with an anticipated completion in spring of 2022. The new Toronto courthouse marks the first project in Canada for the award-winning Renzo Piano Building Workshop.
The new Toronto courthouse will include:
- Barrier-free environment, to allow visitors and occupants to travel throughout the building with ease.
- Video conferencing to allow witnesses to appear from remote locations and in-custody individuals to appear from detention facilities.
- Closed-circuit television to enable children and other vulnerable witnesses to appear before the court from a private room.
- Courtroom video/audio systems to allow counsel to display video evidence recorded in various formats and for the simultaneous viewing of evidence.
- A single point of entry with magnetometers, baggage scanners, continuous video surveillance, and separate corridors to ensure the security of judges, members of the public, and the accused.
The project also includes the first learning centre in an Ontario courthouse. This space offers opportunities for the public, justice workers, and students to learn about Indigenous history and issues related to the justice system in Ontario. The learning center will be a safe, inclusive place of dialogue and host to interactive exhibits, teaching opportunities, and will house reference materials relating to justice, injustice, truth and reconciliation, as well as Indigenous legal traditions and systems.
The new courthouse will bring together many of Toronto’s Ontario Court of Justice criminal courts operating across the city. Amalgamating several courts into one state-of-the-art facility will reduce costs, make operations more efficient and effective, provide for equal access to services, and will ensure the province’s real estate portfolio is sustainable, accessible and efficient.
The courthouse will be designed to meet the LEED Silver standard with a focus on energy efficiency, healthy indoor environments and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
