Former Downsview Airport tarmac will be turned into creative space for cultural events

“We’re looking to build a cultural destination, with the broadest definition of culture,” said Mitchell Marcus, Northcrest’s executive director of site activation and programming, in an interview. “We’re taking a blank canvas and making it not so blank anymore.”

Northcrest is offering up to $100,000 to one project, or to be split among several successful proposals, in hopes of unveiling it to the public in 2025. 

Other projects are already scheduled for the site this year. In June, the facility will host “R.A.V.E.,” an immersive dance and theatre hybrid that’s running for six performances as part of the 2024 Luminato Festival. 

The open call to transform the tarmac is part of a 30-year redevelopment plan for the site, transforming the 370 acres of industrial land into a series of new neighbourhoods.

Marcus said the aim of these cultural initiatives is to let artists and creative minds take the lead on defining what the space should be, long before shovels enter the ground. He describes it as a “culture-forward” approach. 

“We’re creating a sense of place at this site that’s been closed to the public for decades, then taking all the lessons and the soul that’s been created from gathering people in this place and putting it into the development,” he said. 

The open call comes after Northcrest took control of the former airport on April 1. The property previously served as a manufacturing facility for Bombardier Aerospace, which sold the airport for $816 million in 2018 to the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, of which Northcrest is a subsidiary.