The City of Toronto is replacing a midtown parking lot with a new park. 

As a tribute to Joni Mitchell’s iconic “Big Yellow Taxi” song, the effort to create the new park is currently being dubbed ‘The Joni Mitchell Project’ by Councillor Mike Colle after the famous Canadian folk singer. 

“I’ve called it the ‘Joni Mitchell Project’ from that iconic line of hers – ‘they paved paradise and put up a parking lot’ – because this is probably the first time in downtown Toronto that we’re actually turning a parking lot into a park, rather than paving over the park,” says Colle.  

Located at Castlefield and Duplex Avenues, the new green space was originally to be part of the upcoming The Capitol Residences mixed-use condo development from Madison Group that is set to take over the site of the former Capitol Event Theatre (oh, the memories). The 14-storey, 146-unit development will officially launch this summer. 

While the development will undoubtedly become a coveted one to call home, the loss of the beloved former event space comes at a time when the last of the familiar long-time landmarks are increasingly being replaced by towering condo developments in the Yonge and Eglinton neighbourhood. Density has only soared to new heights (no pun intended) as a result. But the neighbourhood is starved of green space relative to the growing population size. Eglinton Park, as great as it is, can only service so many people. 

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