Wychwood Barns
| Artscape Wychwood Barns | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Type | Community centre / Urban park |
| Location | 601 Christie Street Toronto ON M6G 2X7 Canada |
| Coordinates | 43°40′48″N 79°25′25″W / 43.68000°N 79.42361°WCoordinates: 43°40′48″N 79°25′25″W / 43.68000°N 79.42361°W |
| Created | November 20, 2008 |
| Owned by | City of Toronto |
| Managed by | Artscape |
| Open | 09:00 - 17:00 Daily |
| Status | Open all year |
| Website | torontoartscape |
Wychwood Barns is a community centre and park in the Bracondale Hill area of Toronto. The converted heritage building was built as a streetcar maintenance facility in 1913. It now contains artist housing and studios, public green space, a greenhouse, a farmer's market, a beach volleyball court, a theatre, a dog run, and office space for many local community groups. The site is a total of 5,574 square metres (60,000 square feet).
Previously a privately owned streetcar enterprise, the Toronto Transit Commission bought all of the infrastructure and space associated with the streetcar. In 1913 the site was expropriated by the City of Toronto for use by the Toronto Civic Railways (later the TTC). The first of an eventual five-building streetcar maintenance facility, known as the streetcar "barns," was built that year. Streetcars accessed the site from the main lines on St. Clair Avenue, just north of the barns, using lines running down Wychwood Avenue on the east side of the property. A series of switches led to spur loops on the property, many of which were south of the enclosed barns, and were used for storage. The facility was known within the TTC as the St. Clair Carhouse. Operations continued at the Carhouse until 1992, by which point a series of expansions at the nearby Hillcrest Complex had long made the Carhouse redundant.
The property was transferred to city ownership in 1996 for a nominal $1 fee. The City of Toronto currently leases the site to Toronto Artscape Inc., a not-for-profit organization that develops and operates space for the arts, at $1 a year for 50 years. Artscape redeveloped the site, raising a total of $19-million including $2.3-million from the federal government of Canada, $3-million from Ontario's provincial government, and $4.5-million from the City of Toronto.
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