10,000 athletes (more than double the number at Sochi), coaches and officials from 41 countries will arrive in TORONTO next year for the Pan/Parapan American Games.

The facilities and residences they’ll occupy will remain when the Games end, and our city and surrounding suburbs will gain a dynamic new waterfront neighbourhood, a student residence and YMCA, market-value condos, affordable housing, parks and green space, a second Olympic-sized pool, improved sports facilities on 3 university campuses, new roads, sewers and public transit.  The plan is to develop facilities across the Greater Toronto Area that communities – rather than the Games – would own, use and maintain.

JASON FELLEN, director of capital projects with TORONTO/2015: “The Games will come and go and we want to make sure that there’s a long-lasting legacy for all of these builds.  We wanted to understand first the Games’ requirements . . . but equally important, we wanted to understand how the owner planned to use the facility (during and after the Games).  We took those two sets of requirements and melded them together as best we could.

“The Games were the catalyst for some much-needed sport and recreation infrastructure across the province.”

<PHOTOS BELOW – 1) Pan-Am Park, action central for the Games’ largest sports cluster;  2) Athletes Village taking shape; 3) Milton Velodrome for track & cycling – it’s one-of-a-kind in Canada; 4) Pan-Am Field, University of Toronto St. George campus – international calibre field hockey venue; 5) Aquatics Centre and Field House – the Pan-Am’s largest build at University of Toronto Scarborough campus; 6) Athletics Stadium at York University – Class 1 track suitable for hosting the Olympics 7) Pachi the Porcupine – the Games’ mascot>