An urban beach built next to a working sugar refinery
Sugar Beach
Opened in 2010 on the East Bayfront, Sugar Beach brought pink umbrellas and imported sand to a stretch of waterfront still overlooked by the Redpath Sugar refinery it's named for.
.jpg)
Advertisement
Sugar Beach opened in 2010 on Toronto's East Bayfront, one of the first major public spaces completed as part of Waterfront Toronto's long-running redevelopment of the city's central waterfront. Designed by landscape architecture firm Claude Cormier + Associés, the small artificial beach brought in imported sand and installed dozens of oversized pink umbrellas along the water's edge, a deliberately playful design that stood out against the industrial waterfront it sat within.
Named for its neighbour
The park takes its name from its immediate neighbour, the still-operating Redpath Sugar refinery next door, whose working industrial silos remain visible from the beach — an unusual and intentional juxtaposition of a leisure space next to active heavy industry that designers treated as a feature rather than something to screen out. Sugar Beach became one of the more photographed and widely cited successes of Toronto's waterfront revitalization, credited with demonstrating that small, design-forward public spaces could draw visitors even without swimmable water.
Advertisement
Sources
Continue reading
The Toronto Rock
Relocated from Hamilton in 1999 and installed at Maple Leaf Gardens, the Toronto Rock won the National…
Rogers Communications
Ted Rogers Jr. borrowed $85,000 to buy a single FM station in 1960 and built it into one of Canada's largest…
.jpg)
Ajax
Most Ontario towns are named after English hometowns or local landowners. Ajax is named after a Royal Navy…
.jpg)
Toronto's Economy: Bay Street
Toronto has been Canada's financial capital since the 1970s, when Bay Street took that role from Montreal's…