Parc Downsview Park needed someone at the helm with a background in business, according to the park's board chair David Soknaki, and that's what the innovative experiment in sustainable development will get from new President and CEO William Bryck. Bryck comes immediately from a post at Queen's University, prior to which he was an executive with private-sector firms including Markborough Properties and CB Richard Ellis Management Services.
The park, on the site of a former military base in North Toronto, is Canada's only national urban park. Sprawling over 572 acres, it has a unique mandate from the federal government to be self-financing, and is being developed as an experimental and environmentally friendly "Tree City" design created by Bruce Mau and Rem Koolhaus. In addition to allowing a naturalized park to "grow," along the lines of New York's famed
Freshkills Park, the site has taken on tenants in a recreational and museum hub and will incorporate residential and commercial development on the site.
In a
statement about his appointment, Bryck said, "this is more than an alteration of the landscape, but promises to become a tangible representation of life and living in the imminent future -- an inspiring prototype to be reveled the world over."
Writer: Edward Keenan
Source: Lisa Hastings-Beck, Director, Public Affairs and Communications, Park Downsview Park
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