As Toronto sees a rise in data centre development, Beeches Development plans to build a seven-storey data centre that will be located in the city’s Leaside neighbourhood at 154 Wicksteed Ave.Supplied/mcCallumSather
As Toronto sees a rise in data centres, one developer is responding to demand by planning a facility just outside the city’s core.
The proposed 87,000-square-foot facility is intended to attract corporate clients to rent out racks of servers – or one prime tenant that will rent out the entire building, says Charles Goldsmith, president of Beeches Development Inc., the leading firm behind the project. It’s expected that Toronto-based companies seeking proximity to their data servers will be most drawn to the site, to be located in the Leaside neighbourhood at 154 Wicksteed Ave.
Toronto’s data centre market stood out in 2025, with real-estate giant CBRE reporting that the city’s total inventory reached 315 megawatts in the first half of the year, with another 153 megawatts under construction.
Canada’s data centre colocation market is projected to reach a value of US$2.11-billion by 2030, with a 7.33-per-cent compound annual growth rate since 2024, according to market research.
Innovation drives evolution
Toronto’s commercial real estate market is shifting, and Mr. Goldsmith has pivoted the purpose of the Leaside development more than once.
His team first planned for a mass-timber office building, which was later reimagined as a life-sciences facility. This quickly changed due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and financial constraints. When Mr. Goldsmith recognized the strong, unmet demand for urban data-centre capacity, his team decided to change course again.
“The reasons that data centres are being set up in the suburbs are for space and power availability – it’s really just where they could build them,” he says. “Toronto needs to realize that we need more data centres in town.”
Much of the groundwork for the new Leaside data centre is already in place. The zoning approvals secured during the life-sciences phase – including density, height and overall massing – still apply to the site’s new purpose. The existing building, which is currently being leased to a dance studio, will be demolished, making way for the new seven-storey facility.
Security is one reason data centres traditionally sprawl across non-urban sites or in densely residential areas, though in this case it’s about intelligence more than land size, Mr. Goldsmith says, and it’s taking on a new architectural dimension.
Instead of relying on vast parcels of land, the vertical, urban structure of the Leaside property will create security through design. High-resolution cameras and advanced lighting wrap around each floor and entryway, while the building’s limited number of access points makes movement easier to monitor and control. This compact layout allows on-site security staff to focus their attention on the main entrances and exits, rather than being spread thin across a sprawling perimeter.
Mr. Goldsmith says the project will need about a year for final permits and site preparation, followed by an additional two-and-a-half years of construction before the building is ready for occupancy in mid to late 2029.
The site was initially planned as a mass-timber office building before it was later reimagined into a life-sciences hub and eventually a data centre. The zoning approvals were secured during the life-sciences phase and align with the site’s new purpose.Supplied/mcCallumSather
The matter of power
Data centres are inherently resource-intensive, and those designed to house AI servers demand even more substantial power. According to Mr. Goldsmith, the site will require about 15 megawatts to support traditional cloud operations, though an ideal target of roughly 25 megawatts would better accommodate AI servers.
Securing access to this level of energy is a complex process. While the 15 megawatts is available now, Toronto Hydro is projected to take five to seven years before it can deliver the full 25 megawatts. Mr. Goldsmith says he’s working with a consultant to help with the process.
“What’s being built in the city core are more of these boutique data centres – smaller facilities that still require generators, but not nearly as many,” says Zenon Radewych, principal at WZMH Architects, which is unaffiliated with the Leaside project but has designed advanced data and technology facilities for major clients such as IBM and Microsoft.
“They’re often designed for financial clients who need proximity to the financial core or for edge data centres that are close to where their data is being generated and where it needs to be processed.”
A human-centred approach
As one of the two architects leading the project, Ian Huff, senior architect at mcCallumSather, emphasizes the importance of integrating the building with its surrounding neighbourhood by using materials such as brick to create a welcoming and robust façade.
“The important thing was how we could make a building that is inviting, friendly and fits in with the neighbourhood,” he says. Their design was inspired by bridging the industrial past and residential fabric of the area.
As the project evolved from an office building to a life-sciences facility, and ultimately to a data centre, the design also adapted to its new purpose. Windows were transformed into solid walls, reflecting the building’s occupancy transition from people to servers. Rather than leaving the façade blank, the design team embraced a digital-inspired expression to honour the building’s new intention.
“We articulated the brickwork to create subtle shadows and detailing inspired by zeros and ones of data, or Morse code,” Mr. Huff says. “This alludes to what’s happening within the building, so it’s not invisible infrastructure, but reads as a genuine part of the city.”
Traditionally crafted masonry gives the building a strong, stable presence through subtle shadows, with analog detailing transforming what might have been invisible infrastructure into a meaningful presence for the community.
Data centres and Toronto’s commercial real estate
Data centres have long been part of Toronto’s urban fabric, with some in the city core dating back to the late 1960s and early 1970s, Mr. Radewych says. For instance, IBM housed a data centre at Toronto’s 36 King St. E., in the 1960s.
Today, there are many data centres in the city, including Telehouse’s at 151 Front St. W., which it proclaims is Canada’s largest colocation facility. eStruxture, another data-centre provider, also operates four facilities in Toronto and one in nearby in Barrie, Ont.
As developers reimagine underused sites to meet the growing demands of AI, cloud and other data-intensive industries, data centres are becoming a core part of Toronto’s innovation ecosystem.
“With the rapid rise of AI and data centres, a lot of developers are re-evaluating sites originally planned for residential or commercial use, now exploring their potential as data centre locations,” Mr. Radewych says.