TORONTO – A new, proposed sports and entertainment facility in Toronto looks to be progressing towards final review and approval from City Council later this year.

OverActive Media, a Toronto-based company that owns a number of esports franchises including the Toronto Defiant and the Toronto Ultra, announced last week that the Exhibition Place Board had approved the concept design for a brand new performance centre that would look to be completed by 2025 along the Exhibition grounds in Toronto.

First announced back in February, the facility is slated to be a $500-million, 7,200-seat theatre-style entertainment facility that will play host to OverActive Media’s two Toronto-based esports franchises, the Defiant and Ultra, who play out of the Overwatch League and Call of Duty League, respectively.

However, as has been maintained by OverActive Media since planning on this project was first announced, this facility has plans to be so much more than just a venue for Toronto-based esports.

“This is not an esports facility, this is a performance venue that we imagine to fill 180 to 200 nights a year full of the top entertainment acts that land in the market,” said Chris Overholt, OverActive Media president and CEO, in a recent interview with Sportsnet. “So our business strategy here is less about e-sports. It will be the convenient home for our two bit Toronto based teams, but the reason to construct the facility, the reason to build out the business proposition around it, is because there’s a market gap that exists in Toronto – has for years – there’s no mid-size facility of 7,000-7,200 seats that looks like this. There’s no facility that’s appropriately positioned and purpose built for the means of attracting the type of music and entertainment acts.

“And more than that, the real venue that attracts all of this talent and attention is, of course, the great hockey and basketball venue that we all love so much, and that has been the home to our two great teams for all these years, but that venue’s conflicted out 100-plus nights a year. So the market opportunity we saw is for OverActive Media, in the context of emerging as a 21st-century sports, media and entertainment company, the performance venue is our opportunity to take our bold step into the entertainment space.”

And more than just an entertainment complex, this new building will also be attached to a hotel which will act as a sister tower, of sorts, to Hotel X.

As a result, with Hotel X already established and another hotel possibly on its way, along with the new entertainment facility, there’s optimism from those in Toronto City Council that this project could be a real boon for the city.

“We have the Beanfield Centre right beside the hotel. So this new 400-room hotel will give us a total of 800 rooms, walking distance from the convention centre, which is gonna allow us to attract some of the bigger convention shows to Toronto,” said Mark Grimes, City Councillor of Ward 3, Etobicoke-Lakeshore, and chair of Exhibition Place.

OverActive Media is working with Henry Kallan, owner of Hotel X, on this new hotel and performance centre and are progressing towards getting approval from City Council, which, according to Grimes, sounds like it shouldn’t be too much of a hassle.

“It’s going through my board, Exhibition Place, and it’ll go to a Toronto Council vote, but I don’t see a problem of being there – we’ve got a positive planning report and I don’t see it being a problem whatsoever,” said Grimes.

This project will be privately funded by OverActive Media’s investors, so the issue with funding from City Council doesn’t look like it’ll be an obstacle.

Now all that remains for this project to take flight is for it to be formally greenlit and finally get working on construction.

“We’re getting close on that,” said Grimes. “It’s been a long haul going through the planning department but we’re hoping in the next few months we’ll see some light at the end of the tunnel and get some approvals and get some shovels in the ground.”