Anthony Coombes’s professional interest and career have centred primarily upon the senior strategic design, management, and implementation of comprehensive urban district development, usually of central waterfronts – in Canada, the United States, England, China and Lebanon.

Educated in Architecture at Sydney University, and in Urban Design at Columbia University, he has, for thirty years, approached urban design policy, programs and development variously from public, corporate, consultancy and academic perspectives. His work in the regeneration of urban districts focuses on public corporate vehicles that are designed to channel energies, collaborations and investments in the making of superior central urban environments.

In public design and development management, he was Chief Planner, Central Area (1972-76) and general manager for the City of Toronto in the construction of its Central Area Plan, a radical reconstitution of public attitudes to civic culture, urban planning and design, and regulation. This program included basic research in Toronto’s urban form and accommodation, the formulation of urban development policies, and fundamental recasting of regulatory regimes to implement these.

As corporate district developer, he has coordinated (Senior Vice President Development, Olympia & York, 1980-1992) the design and development of the World Financial Center and Canary Wharf districts in New York and London respectively. As joint-venture partner, he has provided the strategic urban design and development plan for the TEDA new city-centre in Tianjin, China. In these activities, he has managed the interface between the public redevelopment corporations and governments, and headed the detailed phasing, design and approval processes for the buildings and public realms.

Mr. Coombes was a founding partner in the Toronto consulting urban design practice Coombes/Kirkland/Berridge. He is now principal of City Formation, a Toronto firm whose practice in the strategic management of urban development includes projects in central Beirut (sectors of the central-city waterfront reconstruction), Tianjin (both TEDA city-centre and a World Bank sponsored analysis of Tianjin’s central city infrastructure, design and redevelopment practices), and Toronto’s waterfront.

In 2000, he was co-Executive Director of the 2001 Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Task Force in the production of the Task Force’s landmark business plan and report. Mr. Coombes is now Executive Director of Neptis, a private Canadian foundation which is conducting wide-ranging studies in the development and promotion of ideas in Canadian urbanization and regional growth management.

He has taught Urban Design at the University of Toronto, and has lectured and contributed critiques at Columbia, Cambridge, Tianjin, Yale and Queen’s Universities.