Ontario Place development proposal described as ‘mind boggling’, but designers promise sustainability
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include comments from Therme Canada (the developer group responsible for revitalizing Ontario Place).
The public, architects, and environmentalists are voicing their disapproval at a proposed indoor waterpark, spa, and huge parking garage that would take up a historic Toronto park.
Austrian developers Therme are hoping transform Ontario Place It is now a private attraction that can accommodate over 2000 cars and a parking lot with a $450 million price tag. It is currently used by the city for events, outdoor activities and live music. Last month, the city received a request from the province and the developer company to redevelop the site.
Alex Bozikovic, The Globe and Mail’s architectural critic, calls the proposal “a disaster” and, if constructed, describes it as “the worst building in Toronto”. People are sharing their concerns on social media about losing this historic public space.
Phil Pothen, environment program manager with environmental group Ontario Defence, calls the proposal “mind boggling”, saying it shows that the Ontario government wants to squander one of the province’s most celebrated places. What’s worse is that the site will also be the terminus station for the upcoming multi-billion dollar Ontario subway line, meaning that the area will be in desperate need of public spaces.
It is a place that no one will ever have to drive. It’s as if they’ve read a treatise on land use planning and on land use that was bad for the environment and decided to do the opposite of everything they read.Phil Pothen is the Environment Program Manager at Ontario Defence
Pothen says this is the latest in a series of unfathomable land use planning, referring to the recent move to allow development in publicly owned parts of the province’s Green Belt.
“These are just giveaways of goods that belong to the public, interests that the government is supposed to be husbanding in the public’s interest, all for well-connected private developers,” he says. “It’s as though they’re pirates that have seized a tanker ship and are selling everything that can be found on it to the highest bidder.”
Pothen labels the project a disaster in terms of potential environmental impacts.
“It is vital that urban areas have public spaces everyone can enjoy,” he says. “The government is taking one of the most renowned and celebrated public spaces and sacrificing it for a private space.”
Furthermore, concrete and parking will continue to contribute to serious CO2 emissions for many decades.
While the renderings for the proposal show various parts of public space, Pothen says they are dwarfed in scale to “essentially the little rough edges of the property.”
A campaign called Ontario Place for All The campaign was launched to garner support for the preservation of the space and to provide ways for people to object to its development.
Therme Canada reacts to criticism and joins with First Nations group for a plan
Mark Lawson is vice president for communications and international relations Therme Canada They stress that the proposed development includes 12 acres of public land, including a new beach on west side of island. This will create an aquatic habitat that will bring fish back into the lake. They’ve also partnered with the charity Swim Drink Fish for consultations.
Lawson said that Canada’s first spa and waterpark facility will be built.
“You’ll have waterslides, and wave pools and chairs under palm trees,” he says. “If you imagine during a snowstorm where it’s snowing sideways, you have the chance to go in, go down a waterslide, hang out in a wave pool, grab a meal, or sit under a palm street while it’s snowing outside and look out at the lake, that’s the kind of thing that will be possible.”
Lawson refers not only to the parking facility, but also to the 2012 Ontario Place report, which concluded that it would benefit from improved transit infrastructure.
“We’re really proud of this opportunity to bring something like this to Toronto’s waterfront for people across the city, across the province and around the world,” he says.