The Quayside project developed for the Toronto waterfront by Alphabet-backed Sidewalk Labs has been officially called off.

In a Medium post announcing the death of the project, Sidewalk Labs CEO Daniel L. Doctoroff writes that the economic collapse that has resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic has made the controversial $1.3 billion plan to reprogram a portion of Toronto's post-industrial waterfront into a new smart city prototype no longer viable.

In the announcement, Doctoroff writes, "For the last two-and-a-half years, we have been passionate about making Quayside happen — indeed, we have invested time, people, and resources in Toronto, including opening a 30-person office on the waterfront. But as unprecedented economic uncertainty has set in around the world and in the Toronto real estate market, it has become too difficult to make the 12-acre project financially viable without sacrificing core parts of the plan we had developed together with Waterfront Toronto to build a truly inclusive, sustainable community."

Over the last three years, the Sidewalk Labs team has led a coterie of high design firms, including  Snøhetta, Michael Green Architecture, and Heatherwick Studio, in a deeply controversial effort to envision a wireless, data-driven, and mass timber-filled future for the city's waterfront. Last year, the design team unveiled a slick information package highlighting the project's spirited mass timber building configurations and outlining its smart city vision for a five-acre portion of the waterfront. Throughout the life of the project, however, the vision created worry in Toronto over privacy rights, the potential for unequitable land speculation, and over existing residents' access to the development and waterfront once the project came online. 

In the end, however, as The Toronto Star reports, it was the pandemic that did the project in, though the city still intends to ultimately develop the site somehow. Toronto Waterfront chairperson Stephen Diamond tells The Toronto Star, "Today is not the end of Quayside, but the first day of its future. Waterfront Toronto will continue to seek public and expert input as we make a next generation community at Quayside a reality.”