Details of Ontario Place renewal revealed

Three firms named to revamp facilities, but province stays mum on cost, timeline of project

The province has unveiled a plan to revitalize its waterfront Ontario Place site that includes an expanded year-round music venue, zip-lines, a European-style spa-waterpark and a new public beach. But it remains unclear how much this vision will cost the government or visitors when it finally opens.

After nearly two years of closed-door talks with bidders, Premier Doug Ford officially announced the winners Friday at a windy rooftop event, with Ontario Place’s well-known Cinesphere IMAX theatre as the backdrop.

As previously reported by The Globe and Mail, the chosen companies are the Quebec outdoor recreation firm Écorécréo, the Austrian spa and waterpark provider Therme and Los Angelesbased concert promoter Live Nation, which currently runs the site’s outdoor live-music venue.

“This will be a public place for everyone to come and experience, and it will stay that way,” Mr. Ford said, stressing that the government-owned land will be leased and not sold off. “It will once again be the world-class destination that it was always meant to be.”

Mr. Ford has made the site a personal priority, and his government restarted a process seeking private-sector proposals for site in 2019. A similar competition under the previous Liberal government ran out of time before the 2018 election. According to the government, the revitalized site will attract millions of visitors annually once work is complete later this decade.

On Friday, the winning firms offered more detail on their plans, including a 9,000-seat winter concert venue by Live Nation, expanding to 20,000 seats in the warmer months, and a climbing park and aerial obstacle course from Écorécréo.

Therme is promising to create a 10-acre facility with a familyfriendly waterpark and adults-only spa, with saunas, mineral pools and dining. Its plans also include botanical gardens and park space along with a new public sandy beach. The company says the project will cost it $350-million, the biggest part of the $500-million the government says will be invested at Ontario Place.

Toronto city councillor Joe Cressy, in whose ward Ontario Place lies, said the choices felt like “design by committee,” with no indication of how the disparate parts would be stitched together to ensure the entire site worked as a cohesive package.

“This is not a casino or a megamall, so it could have been worse ,” he said, referring to proposals for the city’s waterfront Mr. Ford floated a decade ago when he was a city councillor and his brother, the late Rob Ford, was mayor. “But ‘could have been worse’ is not an acceptable policy for revitalizing public land.”

Mr. Cressy also criticized the lack of public consultation in the run-up to these companies being chosen, a complaint echoed by the advocacy group Ontario Place for All.

The government says it now plans to launch public consultations on the site – after the winning bidders have been chosen. Mr. Ford defended the move, saying his government and his predecessors had heard plenty from the public about what they did not want at Ontario Place – a casino, opposed by Mayor John Tory, or condos – and his government listened.

Much of the 50-year-old Ontario Place is showing its age. The rooftops of its futuristic-looking “pods,” which are suspended above the lake’s surface, are choked with weeds. The white paint on the catwalk guardrails is peeling or flecked with rust. The Cinesphere’s once golf-ball-like white dome is now gray and dull. Not far from where the Premier spoke Friday lies the smashed remains of a snack bar where a once-illuminated Coca-Cola sign lies on its side.

After it launched the bid process, the government altered its plans and committed to keeping these original Ontario Place structures in place. But none of the bidders announced Friday intend to use them or refurbish them. Heritage Minister Lisa MacLeod said the government was exploring having the Ontario Science Centre use them for programming.

Since the amusement park closed a decade ago, the William G. Davis Trail on the site has been well-used, as has the new Trillium Park on its east side. The government also promised to preserve these features, and Therme says it plans to refurbish the trail, while keeping it accessible to the public. But advocates have been pushing for an Ontario Place that has more public space people can use without having to pay.

Therme is promising to set aside about 3.2 hectares for free outdoor space, which the company says is 40 per cent of their portion of the overall site. Such a public space would represent about a 20th of the total area of Ontario Place.

The site as a whole will require substantial investment in remediation and utility work before any revitalization can occur – work that Queen’s Park has promised to fund. Under the Liberals, that cost was pegged at $100-million. Mr. Ford had no updated figure to share Friday morning.

“Well, I can’t give you an exact figure, but what we’re doing is putting a lot of money into it to keep the costs lower for everyone, to be inclusive,” he said, adding that more details will be released at a later date.

The timeline for this work remains somewhat vague, with environmental and heritage assessments still required. Some construction work could begin this year, the government says, though the best case scenario is that it will be six to nine years before the public is able to use the new facilities.

“Today marks a very, very important beginning, as opposed to a mid-point or an end-point,” said Toronto Mayor John Tory. “It’s a provincially-owned site, but it matters very much to the city of Toronto.”

It was also unclear how much money people would have to pay to enjoy these attractions, each of which will operate independently and could require separate entrance fees. Mr. Ford suggested the price could be similar to going to the Toronto Zoo, which costs $29 for an adult.

In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Anne-Marie Garner, Therme Group’s vice-president of legal and corporate governance, said admission prices had not been finalized. However, she said adults would be able to enter the spa for “under $40.”