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Hell of a lot of Chutzpah from Sidewalk Labs here. They’ve built basically nothing to date but a giant pile of negative press, but sure, ask to be responsible for even more waterfront land. thestar.com/news/gta/2019/…
I don’t really get this bit from Sidewalk CEO Dan Doctoroff’s letter either. The first phase of the Waterfront East LRT needs ~$1 B and a decision on the Union Station connection. It’s not like it’s a problem that can only be solved by digital wizardry. medium.com/sidewalk-toron… 
Also dangling a new Google Canada HQ in the port lands as part of this deal seems a bad look after Amazon’s HQ2 game show debacle.
So here’s Sidewalk’s financial pitch: basically, the city could use tax-increment financing and development charges to raise ~$6B for waterfront infrastructure through traditional means, but process is slow. Sidewalk could front some of that money now, then get paid back later.
And then the last part of the financial pitch: separate from that ~$6B loan/payback, Sidewalk would ultimately get a cut of revenue from the sale of publicly-owned land to private developers.
Here’s a map of this new, larger Sidewalk Labs plan for the eastern waterfront. They’ve also got a potential next phase in mind that would encompass most of the port lands. sidewalktoronto.ca/wp-content/upl… (PDF)
For scale: Toronto’s port lands are roughly the same size as downtown Toronto, from Bathurst to Jarvis, the lake to Dundas.
Sidewalk Labs has also published new renders. I will give them this: Torontots is a pretty good name for a childcare centre.
What’s up with this guy though? Leave some baguettes for the rest of us dude.
