Here’s what Queen’s Park wants Ontario Place to look like, post-redevelopment

Here’s what Queen’s Park wants Ontario Place to look like, post-redevelopment

ontario-place-concept

At a press conference this morning with tourism minister Michael Coteau, the province released a more detailed (but still not very detailed) version of its pre-election promise to find a way forward for shuttered Ontario Place—one that won’t involve filling it with condos. The newly announced plan, such as it is, calls for Queen’s Park to spend “up to $100 million” on an environmental assessment and other things necessary to get the site to the point where partner organizations might be enticed to build a list of new amenities, including a “year-round waterscape,” an improved live-music venue and a “discovery and innovation hub.” The Cinesphere and its pods would be preserved. The plan also calls for the creation of a “canal district” with shops, though it’s not clear how well those shops would do without condos nearby to keep them flush with business. The first concrete step in executing the plan will be the construction of the previously announced urban park and waterfront trail.

It’s all very vague at this point (all the province is saying is that it’s committed to getting someone—not the province itself—to build most of this stuff, at some undetermined point in the future), but we do, at least, have a new rendering of what Ontario Place will supposedly look like when all the redevelopment is finished. It’s above. With luck, the area will end up looking at least that nice.