'If you build it, they will come' is more than just the famous line from the film Field of Dreams, it's also true of the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre (TPASC).

Located in Scarborough, a community in Toronto's eastside, the state-of-the-art sports complex has become a beacon in an area that was truly in need of a communal hub of this magnitude.

Last summer, after many years of planning and preparation, Toronto welcomed athletes from 41 countries to compete in the 2015 Pan Am and Parapan Am Games. The two events, which lasted the better part of two months, were hailed internationally for the superb treatment of the athletes, as well as for the first class venues and amenities that housed the various Game events. 

While the Games may be long over, the lasting impact of this summer sporting event continues to live on and grow across Toronto. One of the most significant contributions to come as a result of the athletic competition is the aquatic centre and sports complex in Scarborough.

Built in conjunction with the city, as well as with the province and the University of Toronto, the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre has helped revitalize the neighbourhood on the eastern edge of the city, while also providing students at the University of Toronto at Scarborough with a much needed sports and athletics facility.

The 312,000 square-foot venue boasts two internationally sanctioned 10-lane 50-metre pools, a dive tank and dry-land dive training facilities, a four-court gymnasium, an indoor running track, conditioning rooms, a high performance testing centre, studio spaces, and a state-of-the-art fitness centre.

While the TPASC was not the only new build for the 2015 Pan Am Games, it was the grandest and most ambitious. "The world-class facility is the largest sport new-build for the Games and the largest investment in Canadian amateur sport history,"explains TPASC's official website. "Pre and post Games, TPASC will deliver extensive programming that serves recreational and community groups, high performance athletes, as well as fitness centre clientele."

The construction of this legacy building and site was not only aspirational in its design, the site itself was re-envisioned from a former landfill to the renowned facility it is today.

Building a large sports centre with two massive pools from a former landfill is, needless to say, no easy task.

Before any construction team could even begin, work had to be completed to ensure the site was safe for workers and the building itself. Green For Life Environmental  Inc. (GFL), the Toronto environmental services company that is most well known for collecting waste in the west half of Toronto, was selected among a group of professional excavators and soil remediation firms to complete the arduous task.

Considering that this was the site of a former landfill, soil from the grounds for the TPASC had to be removed and treated for environmental impacts in a process called soil remediation. Patrick Dovigi, GFL's President and CEO, describes the sheer enormity of the company's remediation efforts, explaining that GFL "... excavated more than 7.5 hectares of land."

Due to the level of contamination posed by landfills, the soil remediation process needed to be widespread and thorough. Most importantly, in order to facilitate the Olympic size pools and the rest of the sporting complex, the site had to be carefully decontaminated.

Stepping back from the work offered by GFL, generally, there are a variety of processes involved in soil remediation. One of those processes is called thermal desorption, a technique that is employed to remove contaminants like oil, mercury and hydrocarbon from excavation sites. Soil vapour extraction is also a popular remediation strategy. Soil vapour extraction is described as a technique using, "... vacuum pressure to remove volatile and some semi-volatile contaminants from the soil. The gas leaving the soil may be treated or destroyed, depending on local air discharge regulations."

GFL's remediation efforts were successful. So successful, in fact, that when Tobias Novogrodsky, the city manager for the 2015 Games, visited the site after the company's clean-up, he was quoted calling the revitalization project as "unbelievable."

"Knowing that the residents of Scarborough have a clean, safe recreational facility that GFL was able to be a part of is very rewarding for us," Patrick Dovigi mentions.

Following GFL's work, the TPASC construction process quickly began in early July of 2012. The facility, which was designed by NORR Architects of Toronto, boasts an aesthetic beauty, while also providing a comprehensive sporting facility.

David Clusiau, NORR's lead designer on the project, was inspired by Ontario's history and geographic beauty when designing the Scarborough sports complex. The TPASC is meant to blend in while also paying homage to the nearby landscape.

Clusiau explained that "the glacially formed landscape of Southern Ontario" played a key role in his design. "It gives it a dynamic silhouette and makes it more of a landmark building, both for the Games and in the community," said Clusiau.

Today, some six months since the Games have ended, the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre serves as the community's health and wellness centre, as well as a training centre for the country's most elite athletes.

"Everything you could possibly want, they have here," Sam Pedlow, a 27-year-old member of the Canadian national beach volleyball team and regular visitor of the TPASC told the Toronto Star. "This is the best in Toronto. You're not going to find a more well-equipped facility than this."