All of a sudden, everybody wants to be in Hamilton
Toronto’s little brother to the south is going from steel town to boom town
Hamilton has been hopping for a while now: thriving restaurants and bars, a dynamite arts scene, and cranes all over presaging even more growth. What was missing were big-ticket attractions and a venue capable of housing them.
That changed with the $280-million transformation of Copps Coliseum into the gleaming new TD Coliseum, which hosted Paul McCartney in the fall, debuted its Matty Matheson–led gastropub in December and locked in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as an investor in February.
Queen’s Park says all-day GO service from Toronto to Hamilton, with trains running every 15 minutes or less, will arrive by 2031. If it makes good on its promise, this boom town will really be in business.
Related: Ten new restaurants, bars and cafés that are worth the drive to Hamilton
Barry Jordan Chong is the city and real estate editor at Toronto Life. He lives and writes in Toronto.
