City of Kitchener celebrates outstanding developments at 2025 Great Places Awards

The City of Kitchener celebrated its 2025 Great Places Awards earlier this evening at the Conrad Centre for the Performing Arts, honouring outstanding development projects that show a commitment to design excellence and innovation in urban design, sustainability and heritage conservation. Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic, who was joined by several members of City Council, kicked off the event, which named winners across a variety of categories. Find a full list of winners below. 

“The projects that we celebrated at this evening’s Awards Night, are a great showcase of the incredible new spaces that have been created across Kitchener,” said Mayor Berry Vrbanovic. “Great Places foster community pride, promote feelings of safety and well-being and contribute to the quality-of-life Kitchener residents expect. The projects and teams honoured this evening should be proud that their hard work and dedication was recognized through the lasting spaces they have created for the benefit of our entire community.”  

The event marks 30 years of celebrating excellence in urban design and heritage, starting with an awards program in 1988 that continued to evolve from the Urban Design and Mike Wagner Heritage Awards into the modern Great Places Awards.   

This year’s award ceremony featured keynote speaker Leia Minaker, the inaugural Director of the Future Cities Institute founded by Caivan at the University of Waterloo, and an Associate Professor in the School of Planning in the Faculty of Environment. 

"For Kitchener to continue to build Great Places, we need to be bold - what are the tradeoffs we need to accept to build a successful future city,” said Leia Minaker during her keynote address. “How can we build trust between sectors so that we're laser focused on outcomes rather than processes?"  

More information about the Great Places Awards, including videos featuring the nominees and winners for each category, can be found on the City of Kitchener’s Great Places webpage.   

2025 Great Places Awards winners