What Will the Legacy of the Pan American and Parapan Games 2015 be for Toronto? Looking at Past Successes and Failures to Inform Toronto's Experience

The 2015 Pan American and Parapan American Games will be hosted in Toronto. The Athletes’ Village is being constructed in the West Don Lands and post Games will be transformed into a mixed-use community. Due to the scale of the project and brief duration of the Games, the creation of this new neighbourhood in Toronto is a sizeable undertaking but has the potential to accommodate Toronto’s anticipated growth and serve to connect the Waterfront from east to west. The central issue for this paper is identifying the legacy aspects of the Athletes’ Village and how stakeholders can work to mitigate any potential negative impacts identified. The investigation will focus on the social, environmental and economic impacts. Recommendations for stakeholders are presented based on the research approach which included interviews, a review of literature as well as case studies of previous sporting events in Winnipeg, Vancouver, Calgary, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Guadalajara, Mexico.