Toronto Metro Districts of Trade
Formal Financial District
It is the main financial district in Toronto and is considered the heart of Canada's finance industry. It is bounded roughly by Queen Street West to the north, Yonge Street to the east, Front Street to the south, and University Avenue to the west, though many office towers in the downtown core have been and are being constructed outside this area, which will extend the general boundaries. Examples of this trend are the Telus Harbour, RBC Centre, and CIBC Square.
Toronto Pearson International Airport
The largest and the busiest airport in Canada and the second busiest in the Americas, YYZ is situated on the border of Toronto proper and Mississagua. It serves as a national hub for FedEx Express and subsequently handles approximately half of all air cargo in Canada. Three cargo facilities on the airport’s grounds provide well over 1 million square feet of warehouse storage. This immense load of international cargo shipment has also been the catalyst for colonies of “business districts” that serve as deregulated space for trans-national corporations to conduct business and store duty free goods.
Generic Office Mid-Rise
Trans-national corporations take advantage of the asphalt laden Mississauga business zone, it’s proximity to YYZ, and it’s lack of regulation to establish satellite offices that often subvert the need for travel from YYZ to urban Toronto. Over 60 Fortune 500 companies base their global or National head offices here.
Office Park
The office park differs from mid-rises in zone primarily due to their cheap, usually single story, construction and secondary purpose of freight warehousing and/or small scale factory assembly. These less stately counterparts serve as workplace for “local employees” more so than for international business and the poor, industrial typological qualities enforce this.
Shipping Depot/Warehouse
An adjacent program to the office park workplace, shipping depots are often the point of departure of goods that have come through YYZ or are slated to leave through it. Supporting ground shipping and consuming massive swathes of land these buildings are expanding the zone to borders of interstates and housing leaving no room for the unprecedented forecasted population growth of the city.
Exposed Support Infrastructure
Petroleum tanks and other industrial infrastructures dot the tarnished lanscape exposed, offering little more than a glimpse into their logistics, visually divorced from their systems. As these systems move toward the zones boundaries they increase risk and lower property values creating disparity in a land scarce situation.