There’s every reason for Ontario Place to become an election issue, especially since the Therme plan is bad for the city
A monolith is heading for Toronto’s waterfront. Doug Ford’s Ontario government continues to advance its plan for a 700,000-square-foot private indoor waterpark and accompanying parking garage.There’s every reason for Ontario Place to become an election issue. The plan from the province and Austrian company Therme would raze and privatize the West Island of the landmark park. Ex-mayor John Tory seemed happy to play along, but nobody in Toronto asked for this.
This “spa” would, as Therme insists, provide publicly accessible space – but only by filling in acres of Lake Ontario around its edges. That new land would be under the management and control of Therme. Toronto’s future is as a dense, fast-growing international city that trades on its public realm and walkability. If a waterpark has any place here, it’s along a 400-series highway, not on the central waterfront.People use a walking path near Ontario Place's Cinesphere on September 29, 2022.
There are no convincing answers to those questions. The pitch from Therme and the province is that the plan will provide jobs, a tourist attraction and public space. On the latter, a brief by local consultants Urban Strategies says the spa “facilitates access to and around the waterfront.” Sure. Also, if you punch me in the nose and then offer me a tissue, you are facilitating access to Kleenex.
But this is a political battle. Toronto needs a vision for Ontario Place. For too long, it and the adjacent city-owned Exhibition Place have been underused: event spaces in an ocean of parking lots.
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