Sidewalk Labs, a division of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, on Thursday said it’s dropping its plans to build a high-tech urban hub on Toronto’s waterfront. 

The controversial project was billed as the city of the future, to be built in Toronto’s Quayside district, which had been soliciting plans for redevelopment. At one point, the plans envisioned buildings made of environmentally sustainable timber and flexible, movable wall panels. Sensors would’ve measured how public facilities are being used. The project, detailed in a 1,500-page master plan, was eventually pared back to a 12-acre plot. 

Dan Doctoroff, CEO of Sidewalk Labs, cited the economic crisis spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic as the reason for abandoning the project. 

“As unprecedented economic uncertainty has set in around the world and in the Toronto real estate market, it has become too difficult