The City has sent a response to our previous from July 19, 2022.

MANO shares our concerns about the City’s timeline and process around the REOI for 32 Lisgar and have written them a letter expressing them.

TMAC’s response to the City’s answers to our questions from July 5, 2022.

TMAC has been monitoring, participating, and holding the City accountable for its REOI process.

Our move-out from 32 Lisgar is complete.

We are now more than 5 years into a lawsuit against the City of Toronto and Urbancorp. As a small charity up against two multibillion-dollar corporations, we knew this would be slow and hard from the beginning. We’re not giving up!

The latest news and status regarding TMAC’s operations during the COVID-19 public health crisis.

This week marks two years since we agreed to a settlement proposed by the City of Toronto and moved into our 30,000 sq. ft. purpose-built arts space at 32 Lisgar Street.

The City is now asking us to declare that we have no right to the space and to leave.

Supporting the day-to-day users of our space – artists, neighbors and members – means dreaming with them about what this facility can be beyond a great place to gather, work and learn.

We are very excited to announce that through partnerships with Virtualware, Beanfield Metroconnect and Ubisoft, we have met the fundraising goal set by the City of Toronto!

One year ago this week, we were in the final stages of reaching a settlement with the City of Toronto that would allow us to take occupancy of our space at 32 Lisgar Street – to ensure the continuity of the organizations that make up our membership, and to begin delivering the community benefit that was promised so many years ago.

This morning, TMAC and the City of Toronto issued a joint statement regarding the settlement agreement reached in February. We’ve had an amazing couple of months, and are thrilled to continue our work bringing media arts and community programming to our space on Lisgar Street. We’ll have more exciting details to share shortly!

This weekend, an article in the Toronto Star brought to light details about our settlement with the City of Toronto and Urbancorp. The “obligations” referred to in the joint statement are now public.

This afternoon, the court approved our settlement with the City of Toronto and Urbancorp, as well as our interim occupancy agreement. We’ll be moving in to our new home immediately.

We have accepted the City’s offer of settlement, which will resolve our litigation regarding the TMAC space at 36 Lisgar. There are still a few steps to go before we’ll be allowed to complete the purchase of the space. We’ll be in touch with our funders, partners, and members in the coming days to fill in the details.

Yesterday, our lawyer appeared in Ontario Superior Court to ask for an injunction to prevent the City of Toronto from blocking TMAC from taking temporary occupancy of our space at 36 Lisgar.

The Toronto Media Arts Centre will ask the court for an injunction to prevent the City from blocking our interim occupancy of the arts space at 36 Lisgar – a privilege Urbancorp has enjoyed for over a year with the explicit blessing of City staff.

In a surprising development, City staff have refused to support TMAC’s efforts to relieve its space crisis while we wait for Edge on Triangle Park to finalize its portion of the resolution we’ve been working towards.

On Monday, November 27, TMAC had a productive meeting with City staff and Councillor Ana Bailão about our members’ urgent space issues. All agree that the process of finalizing the settlement is taking too long. A solution is needed to house our organizations in the interim.

We’re once again in productive talks with the City of Toronto about coming to mutually acceptable terms about the space at 36 Lisgar and certain a resolution is just around the corner.

As our community is painfully aware, our fight to protect the cultural benefit at 36 Lisgar and secure a permanent home for media arts in Toronto has dragged on for years. All we have asked is for Urbancorp to deliver on its contractual obligations to us – nothing more, nothing less. The City has always had the ability to compel them to do so, but has not.

Our license application – and news of progress towards occupying the arts hub – has been met with excitement by the local community at 36 Lisgar, 150 Sudbury, 68 Abell and surrounding residences!

We are still at it! TMAC is making (slow, but sure) progress toward a settlement that will work for all parties to our lawsuit, which now includes the trustee for Urbancorp’s bankruptcy.

It’s been close to a year since we engaged in mediation with the City of Toronto and Urbancorp. Progress has been slowed by Urbancorp’s April 2016 filing for bankruptcy protection, which put a pause on our litigation.

TMAC representatives and members attended the Active 18 AGM on June 21.

The day after we filed our reply to Urbancorp and the City’s statements of defense, the City of Toronto reached out to TMAC to ask if we’d be open to mediation (rather than proceed to court with our claim). Of course, this is exactly what we’d been asking for all along–for the City to simply talk to us and make time and space for all parties to come to a positive resolution.

We filed a joint reply to the City’s and Urbancorp’s statements of defence today.

Today, the City of Toronto responded to the statement of claim TMAC filed on May 28. It’s an interesting document filled with many assertions and much erroneous information. We are curious to see how the Court responds to the City’s claims.

About a month ago, TMAC filed a statement of claim against the City of Toronto and the property developer Urbancorp. It was a sad end to a four-year collaboration that was supposed to result in a new media arts centre our neighborhood, members, and community could be proud of — a place to build the future of our organizations.

The state-of-the-art, purpose-built media arts facility we secured in 2011 through a Section 37 deal with condo developer Urbancorp and the City of Toronto has been ripped out from under us just as we were preparing to move in. We are frankly mystified by the lack of support and facilitation the City provided to ensure Urbancorp did not default on this deal.