You’ll never guess where Doug Ford wants to put a new Metro Toronto Convention Centre
The premier said the project would probably cost “a few billion dollars”
Who could have predicted that Premier Doug Ford’s recent comments about a possible “few billion dollar” overhaul of Toronto’s convention centre would wind back around to his Ontario Place plans?
Related: Doug Ford says only “crazy lefties” don’t like his Ontario Place ideas
Last week, after unveiling the $1.04-billion architectural renderings of the new Ontario Science Centre, Ford shared early details of a new fixation: the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. He said it’s “one of the worst convention centres anywhere in the world” and bemoaned that Toronto is losing business to convention centres in other cities.
Yesterday, Ford added that his replacement convention centre would be nearly five times bigger than the current downtown location. “We’re going to build a world class, two-million-square-foot state of the art convention centre,” he said.
But where will he find the space? According to the Toronto Star, Ford is—unsurprisingly—eyeing a plot of under-used land at Exhibition Place, just next to Ontario Place, where the Therme spa and new Science Centre are set to open in 2029.
“I just can’t mention where it’s going to be or how we’re going to build it,” Ford said, not confirming or denying the Star source’s intel, “but it’s going to be another shock and awe when people see it.”
Related: After record snowfall didn’t destroy the Science Centre, some question whether it needed to close
Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
