Metrolinx must pay almost double its original offer for a property in downtown Toronto’s Corktown expropriated for Ontario Line construction, the Ontario Land Tribunal has ruled.

The provincial transit agency has been ordered to pay nearly $88 million — up from its initial $46-million offer — for land at 68 and 70 Parliament Street, the former site of a Porsche dealership.

The decision represents one of the largest expropriation compensation awards ever seen in Ontario, The Toronto Star reported.

“I have practised in the area of expropriation for 25 years, and this is the largest award of compensation that I have seen,” said Shane Rayman, a partner with the law firm Rayman Harris, told the Star.

Harris was not involved in the case.

The tribunal sided with property owners’ estimates that the site could have supported two mixed-use towers over 30 storeys tall. Metrolinx had argued the land would only be approved for a single 23-storey tower if not for the Ontario Line.

The Corktown ruling follows a similar case earlier this year in Liberty Village, where a property owner was awarded $24 million more than the agency’s offer. According to the Star, the expropriation process for the $27-billion Ontario Line has sparked pushback from homeowners, tenants, and small businesses along the route, which stretches from Exhibition Place to the Don Valley.

“Metrolinx respects the Ontario Land Tribunal’s decision and the process involved in determining fair market value,” Andrea Ernesaks, a spokeswoman for the agency, told the Star. “Our project budgets allocate funds for property acquisitions as well as contingency funds for potential variations in cost.”

The Corktown site is now slated for a 46-storey tower and eight-storey midrise with 471 residential units, plus retail.

“At times these things have to be adjudicated,” said Rayman to The Toronto Star. “And to be fair, it is difficult to determine hypothetically what the value of a site like this would be.”

“We don’t want to discourage them from investing by expropriating them after they’ve spent a lot,” said William Strange to the Camrost Felcorp chair in urban economics at the University of Toronto.

Pictured: Future Corktown Station development in downtown Toronto.

Rendering: Metrolinx