Here’s what Queen’s Park wants Ontario Place to look like, post-redevelopment
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.
Stupid plan. It’s hard for me to imagine this being a sustainable tourism attraction. Let it be built and in twenty years we will be asking the same questions of what to do with the harbourfront.
Why is a park a stupid plan? All great cities with a waterfront have learned to take advantage of that waterfront to build parks and cultural facilities that everyone can enjoy. Look at the transformation of the waterfront in Sydney, Melbourne, or Chicago for examples of this. There are many people moving into neighbourhoods not too far from Ontario Place (e.g., Liberty Village) who I’m sure would appreciate more parkland in their vicinity, not to mention all of those from around the city who would be drawn here for concerts and other summer events. Plenty of people enjoy Toronto’s waterfront as it is, and it’s high time we opened up and improved more of it for public use.
Will the parking lot be covered over or replaced by a garage? Hated to see all that asphalt as I walked into Ontario Place from the poorly located transit loop.
I agree, all world class cities have great parks. The challenge is to develop it with the future use in mind. I hope the designers visited other world class waterfront parks to get ideas.