The Centre for Social Innovation, CSI for short, has purchased the Murray building at 192 Spadina. The organization will start, over the next four years, to transform the space into one of Toronto largest co-working spaces.

The CSI, which operates co-working several other spaces in Toronto and New York, hopes the space will help foster the type of innovation that will help cities solve issues like climate change and widening income inequality.

The building, which was built in 1920, has more than 64,000 square feet in useable floor space, making it four times as big as CSI’s current Spadina location. The space currently houses 60 organizations and small businesses.

On its website, the CSI states some of the reasons it decided to make the purchase. “CSI’s board embraces the opportunity to invest now to ‘take back’ our community spaces and reclaim the community’s control of the means of production. We can’t have everything in corporate hands. We need to be working together to build ‘community wealth,” says the organization.

Image courtesy of Google Maps.
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Igor Bonifacic is the managing editor of Toronto Standard. Follow him on Twitter.