Brampton’s Centre For Innovation eight years later: A history of silence and Patrick Brown’s broken promises
A pedestrian walking in downtown Brampton near Nelson Street off George Street would see a big sign with stark lettering, boldly claiming “Centre For Innovation” and “Construction Starting Soon”.
Yet there are no signs of construction, and there haven’t been for eight years.
In April 2018, former Brampton mayor Linda Jeffrey described the proposed Centre For Innovation (CFI) as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity for Brampton.” Jeffrey also said the new announcement “marks the transformation for Brampton,” and promised “new opportunities” for the city’s residents.
Now, eight years later, after Patrick Brown became mayor and used the project to put his stamp on the city, claiming repeatedly that the Centre for Innovation is an anchor of his widely trumpeted “Innovation District”, the only signs of either are fading plans and withering posters on aging downtown buildings promising a vision that is nowhere in sight.
Patrick Brown’s “Innovation District” has become the source of jokes on social media. (Alexis Wright/The Pointer)
Wood hoarding around vacant blocks are all that passersby see, with large displays promising the Centre for Innovation and the Innovation District.
The City’s 2018 capital budget described the CFI project as a downtown joint-use centre providing a new central library, entrepreneurial space and cultural space near the proposed university.
The promised Centre for Innovation (CFI) still has not materialized, with part of downtown Brampton still covered in placards and posters around the proposed site. (Alexis Wright/The Pointer)
The Ontario government committed $90 million to a new Ryerson University site in Brampton, with Sheridan as an academic partner. The planned campus explicitly included a Centre for Education, Innovation and Collaboration, an innovation hub and a national cybersecurity centre.
Brampton had committed up to $150 million toward the university campus and innovation centre.
However, in October 2018, the Doug Ford PC government announced that it was cancelling its $90-million funding commitment for the Brampton Ryerson (now TMU) campus. Even so, at Brampton City Hall, roughly $50 million had been earmarked for the university and $100 million for the innovation centre.
In May of 2019, under Brown’s leadership, Brampton Council unanimously approved moving forward with several major downtown projects, including the CFI. It was now conceived as an iconic gateway building, with a new central library, digital creation and programming facilities, performance/audio-recording space, assistive technologies and cultural programming. The proposed site was tied to a downtown transit hub which has also never materialized.
Patrick Brown announced this as “exciting transformational initiatives for Brampton.”
However, there were still concerns about what Brampton was getting for its $100-million CFI commitment. An investigation by The Pointer found the project was expected to cost about $100 million, with finances still to be worked out, while the precise programming remained relatively undefined.
The City, in 2020, increasingly treated the CFI not as an isolated building, but as the centrepiece of a larger “Innovation District.”
In July 2021, Brampton selected Diamond Schmitt Architects to design the CFI. In its announcement, the City said that the new project will connect post-secondary institutions, businesses and startups and provide a new central library and flexible innovation/collaboration space. Construction was supposed to begin in 2023.
Brown called it a step toward “unlocking the economic potential of downtown Brampton.”
In 2022, the project began to become substantially more expensive. The City’s allocation was set at about $99.4 million, with revised estimates around $172 million, while construction timetables were repeatedly pushed back after Brown failed to budget money for the project.
The University of Guelph-Humber also announced its withdrawal from the project, and the University’s partners said the delays by Brown meant that they no longer regarded the project as a timely or viable location option for Guelph-Humber.
In 2023, the City changed its delivery model and issued a Request for Expression of Interest (RFEOI) stating it was looking for partnership models to deliver the CFI. City officials said they were looking for “innovative ideas and partnership models” that could help deliver the project, rather than simply proceeding with a conventional municipal construction project.
Brampton’s current CFI project page shows that a Preferred Proponent was selected by Council in Q1 of 2024. However, the City then moved into confidential negotiations rather than immediately announcing a construction contract. The CFI thus remained a live project, but nearly six years later, it still had not reached construction.
Then, in 2025, the physical site preparation finally began when the City announced that the Nelson Square Parking Garage and George Street Surface Parking Lot would be permanently closed and demolished to make way for the CFI. The closure was scheduled for September 1, 2025. This was a $23.8-million investment for Main and Queen Streets, and Ken Whillans Square, framed as paving the way for the CFI.
However, the City subsequently postponed the parking closure, claiming the lot had to stay open through the holiday season because of concerns raised by downtown businesses and residents.
Currently, the parking lots are still open and there are no signs of construction happening.
Wesley Jackson, lawyer and mayoral candidate, criticized the City’s handling of the CFI.
“In one press release, you're telling me that the Centre for Innovation is the key to downtown Brampton's future,” he said. “In another press release, you're telling us we can't build it because we need $30 million and we don't have it. And by your conduct, you're telling me you had $100 million that you could have deployed how you wanted. So where is it?”
Jackson sees the CFI as part of a broader pattern that he attributes to the current administration under Brown, spending on other properties such as the $78-million Sandalwood Parkway purchase of the former Alectra building, an $11-million transit investment with a private bus service, a $6-million tennis dome and roughly $7.7 million on hockey rinks.
“I fully intend to — I'll use the word audit, but…review, study, determine if the Centre for Innovation is — is it a lot of smoke. Is it a lot of nonsense? Is it a marketing campaign? Is there merit to it? Is it just a glorified 3P partnership to build a new library? Let's find out what that project really is,” he said.
Tracy Pepe, a councillor candidate for Wards 1 & 5 and businessperson, labelled the CFI as a “joke” and “waste of money.”
“You do not label something an innovation district because you say it is,” Pepe said. “The people determine if it's an innovation district.”
Brampton’s pre-budget submissions to Queen’s Park and Ottawa have in the past carried a specific dollar figure attached to the Centre For Innovation. In 2026, that number is missing, even from the City’s promotional materials.
The City’s 2018 provincial pre-budget submission asked Queen’s Park for an additional $20 million toward what was then called the “centre of education, innovation and collaboration.” A year later, highlighted by The Pointer’s reporting from November 2019, the City’s federal ask for the same project had grown to $50 million, bundled into a wider wish list submitted under Ottawa’s Investing in Canada Plan.
Brampton’s 2026 federal pre-budget submission, a 70-plus page document that requests exact figures for nearly every other major project, mentions the Centre For Innovation only once. It appears in a single sentence listing other projects planned along the same corridor, with no funding amount, no ask, and no elaboration.
This pattern of asking without a result is not new. The Pointer reported in January 2020 on that year’s pre-budget submission and observed that the City’s requests were “marching to the beat of the same drum it has for years,” quoting a councillor who said the City was “in the exact same situation proposing these asks again this year.”
Six years later, on the CFI specifically, the City appears to have stopped making a specific ask at all.
Candidates such as Wes Jackson, who is running for mayor, have criticized the handling of the CFI project and promised to audit or investigate it as part of a broader pattern of diverting funds without proper transparency. (Alexis Wright/The Pointer)
Institutions like the Brampton Public Library still maintain that they are in contact with the mayor’s office on opening a branch in the proposed CFI. In a statement to The Pointer, Brampton Library CEO Todd Kyle said, “Our Facilities Master Plan from 2022 envisions this branch as a replacement for the current Four Corners branch downtown.”
In another statement to The Pointer, Louroz Mercader, Executive Director of the Downtown Brampton Business Improvement Area (BIA), said that “The Downtown Brampton BIA has long been a supporter the vision and plans for the new Centre of Innovation that will be a key anchor to the Innovation District. We understand that the City of Brampton is advancing planning and development of the new centre, and we are looking forward to groundbreaking of this important project soon.”
The Pointer sent questions to the City of Brampton and Mayor Brown’s office, asking for details and updates regarding the CFI project.
They did not respond.
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