Union Station revitalization reshapes Toronto’s transit hub

Union Station revitalization has repositioned Toronto’s Union Station as a future-ready multi-modal transportation hub, designed to handle up to 130 million passengers annually, as profiled by Canadian Architect.

Started in 2007 and now nearing completion, the overhaul blends Beaux-Arts heritage conservation with a major below-grade expansion—while keeping the station open throughout construction.

From grand hall to multi-modal transportation hub

Completed in 1927 after 14 years of construction, Union Station was intended as a civic monument—Beaux Arts in both refinement and scale—by original architects John M. Lyle, Ross & Macdonald, and Hugh G. Jones. Over time, though, parts of the building’s circulation logic became muddled, and everyday retail uses worked their way into prominent areas. The Great Hall’s south-facing composition—centered on a Corinthian-columned portal down to the concourse—was long flanked by side vaults that looked important but ended up serving inconsistent, sometimes mundane purposes, including a Harvey’s outlet.

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This is the first comprehensive makeover in the station’s history. It combines restoration, renovation, and a massive dig-down expansion under the tracks, and it moved forward even after the financial collapse of the first two contractors across its three phases. The aim is straightforward: align a heritage landmark with today’s operational reality—about 65 million passengers a year, with the rebuilt complex set up to accommodate roughly double that volume in the years ahead.

How the Union Station revitalization created space below the tracks?

Planning began to crystallize after 2000, when ownership of the station building (the head house) and the below-grade GO and VIA concourses transferred from a rail consortium to the City of Toronto. Metrolinx, which operates the GO regional commuter transit network, owns the train shed’s track-level space—an ownership split also described by GO Transit. Alongside federal, provincial, and municipal funding, the project still required private revenue, and early concepts ranged from a sports venue to condo towers above the station.

A 2006 feasibility study led by NORR with heritage specialists EVOQ pushed a different approach: add space where it would be least visually intrusive, beneath the tracks and below part of the head house. The resulting 270,000-square-foot expansion nearly doubled the size of the previous Bay Street GO concourse and added a similarly sized York Street GO concourse. It also brought 160,000 square feet of stores plus a broad mix of restaurants and food-court space—supporting operations while giving the station more of a destination feel.

Keeping people moving through an active transit facility shaped the renovation strategy. NORR’s Silvio Baldassarra, executive architect in charge of the project from 2006 until 2024 (when he stepped down as NORR Chair Emeritus), described success as dependent on maintaining safe, calm passenger flow even as construction conditions were intense. Beneath the train shed, the engineering work demanded especially fine tolerances: 185 columns were jacked up slightly, their loads transferred to bedrock-supported micro-piles, and then cut away. To prevent track sag, Metrolinx required track movement of less than six millimetres; the project achieved less than three millimetres. Throughout construction, eleven of the station’s twelve tracks remained operational.

Great Hall restoration, east-end connection, and better passenger circulation

The revitalization also tackles long-standing configuration issues—some rooted in the station’s earliest planning. The head house was built before the tracks and even before agreement was reached on whether platforms would be accessed from above or below. The Great Hall’s blocked side vaults were meant for the from-above route that was not selected. Today, those spaces have been converted into concourse access points, restoring them to the station’s circulation system.

Passenger patterns have shifted sharply since the station’s early decades. Narrow platforms designed for modest waves of long-distance rail travellers are now used by rush-hour commuters arriving every few minutes. The enlarged GO concourses act as holding areas that reduce track-level overcrowding, especially since commuters typically learn a departure platform only a few minutes before a train leaves—when electronic signage and announcements provide that information.

On the east side, the project links old architecture to new interventions with a series of careful moves. Just east of the Great Hall, the team shortened a light well and altered floor heights so the east wing’s main floor aligns with the Great Hall’s level. The base of the truncated well now serves as a laylight, and a new opening cut through the floor creates views down to the new retail space. Limestone wall panels carry the Great Hall’s materiality into the renovated areas, while minimalist-contemporary details—such as a glass-panelled steel railing—mark the newer work without overpowering the heritage fabric.

Accessibility upgrades: the “moat,” the ramp, and the glass canopy

Improved accessibility was a priority throughout, and it is most visible in the “moat” running along Front Street to the east and west of the Great Hall and around the corners. Originally an open-air, below-grade service zone for baggage, taxis, and post-office functions, the east moat later became the primary connector between Toronto’s subway and the station—yet it forced people making that transfer to use stairs.

By relocating the sewer main that created the grade change, the revitalization replaced that barrier with a gentle ramp. A steel-ribbed glass canopy now caps the moat, offering protection from bad weather and worm’s-eye views of nearby towers and the CN Tower. The canopy evokes the rational elegance of historic train shed roofs but keeps a low profile: a parapet screens it at street level, and the structure stops short of the heritage façade to avoid impacting it.

Pedestrianizing the moat meant loading and servicing had to be reworked elsewhere. Infrastructure that most visitors will never see allows delivery vehicles approaching from the lakeshore to pass through the basements of Scotia Square Arena and other buildings and reach a new below-the-tracks loading area on the station’s south side.

Heritage conservation, building systems, and the capacity question

EVOQ principal Dima Cook described the restoration as beginning with an enormous cleaning effort. Decades of exposure to coal-powered steam locomotives, diesel trains, cigarettes, and combustion engines left the building “filthy,” and exterior spalling was also evident. Even so, the Great Hall’s thin, coffered Guastavino-tile vault remained structurally sound.

Building systems were upgraded in ways intended to stay visually quiet. In the VIA Rail concourse, recreating the original between-columns panel arrangement allowed sprinklers and electrical trays to sit within a central dropped-ceiling band, without lowering the ceiling height across the entire space. Recreated cast-iron storefront frames in the same concourse integrate supply and return ventilation grilles.

Material continuity brought its own complications. Matching limestone and multiple marbles required careful sourcing. One example involved Missisquoi marble, a grey-green stone used extensively in the Front Street Promenade (the station’s original, now-restored retail zone). The relevant colour appears only as a narrow band within multi-hued slabs once quarried in Quebec from a site that had closed. By selecting a dark-grey shade within the same slabs for high-volume finishes in the expansion, the team persuaded the owners that reopening the quarry made economic sense.

Projections for future usage have shifted. Thirteen years into the revitalization, the pandemic changed work patterns and slowed expectations that travel volume would double to 130 million passengers annually by 2030; a newer projection is 95 million passengers annually by 2036. Even with that adjustment, the project positions an irreplaceable heritage building for long-term growth. Scott Barrett, director of property management and key assets at the City of Toronto, described the overhaul as transformative—improving capacity and experience while helping turn the station into a destination in its own right.

NORR’s David Clusiau has placed the work in a tradition of early 20th-century Toronto infrastructure that aimed to ennoble the city as well as solve practical problems, pointing to landmarks such as the R.C. Harris Water Treatment Plant and the Prince Edward Viaduct. Against a backdrop of hollowed-out heritage façades paired with new towers, the dig-down at Union Station stands out for expanding capacity while keeping the historic architecture structurally and visually central.

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