The Debate: Is the Ontario Place redevelopment plan the right one? - Toronto Star

The Ford government’s plan for a renewed Ontario Place is hardly perfect, writes David Israelson. “Yet tempting as it is to mistrust the greenspace-hating, developer-loving Ford government for this ... plan, I’d give a qualified Yes to moving ahead. At least it’s something. And in this case, something is better than nothing ... (L)et’s see if we can make Ontario Place a real place again. And let’s make (Premier Doug) Ford deliver something, rather than nothing.”

The plan promises “three discrete, imported private attractions behind expensive paywalls,” writes Ken Greenberg, arguing against the plan.

“A truly consolidated ‘Lakefront Park’ would offer an array of experiences and a grand new waterfront gathering place, including recreation, entertainment, major annual events, theatres, marinas, art galleries, restaurants and heritage sites that would serve locals and act as a major international tourism draw. Between buildings and stretching across Lake Shore Blvd., attractive landscapes would provide freely accessible park spaces that would extend like an emerald arm across the waterfront.”

YES

David Israelson

Writer

It’s hard to believe that 50 years after Ontario Place opened and nine years after much of it was closed, we’re still agonizing over how to bring back even a whisper of its former fun and glory.

The latest proposal, unveiled by Ontario Premier Doug Ford, seeks to restore, recapture and redevelop the 155-acre public property into a real place. It would be open year-round, require paid admission for most of the attractions and be paid for through a still mysterious combination of private and public funding — how much it will cost taxpayers is anybody’s guess.

It’s hardly perfect. Yet tempting as it is to mistrust the greenspace-hating, developer-loving Ford government for this Ontario Place plan, I’d give a qualified Yes to moving ahead.

At least it’s something. And in this case, something is better than nothing.

Full disclosure: I was a member of the board of directors for Ontario Place from 2009 to mid-2011. Even then, we directors spent much time going around the room talking about how to revitalize what was quickly becoming a faded and unloved attraction.

We kept wondering: what has gone wrong? We agreed that Ontario Place should be attractive, affordable, accessible, environmentally sustainable — and fun. But nothing seemed to take us there.

Some of us remembered the early days of Ontario Place, when it was a young adult’s date-night dream. Ontario Place was one of the few places where you could drink beer or wine outdoors — and then see a giant movie or sit on the grass and hear an A-list concert.

Our board did research, commissioned ideas, looked at plans and talked, and talked and talked. Many of the proposals we saw were interesting. But as it turned out, not one of them was possible.

There are several reasons why, in my view, it has taken so long for any good ideas about Ontario Place to get anywhere. One is historical: Ontario Place was conceived in the late 1960s as the province’s jealous answer to Montreal’s Expo 67.

It was a nice idea, but it arrived a bit late. Expo helped put Montreal, and arguably Canada, on the map — Ontario Place aspired to be spectacular, but its secret was that it made people smile.

As Toronto grew, residents and visitors found other options. As time passed, there were better restaurants, better bars and better places to see movies; remember that when Ontario Place started, there was no film festival, no Luminato, no Pride parades, no Blue Jays or Raptors, no Queen West-West, nearly nothing to do or see on the Waterfront.

Now — pandemic permitting — there’s a lot.

The second, and bigger, problem is that it has never been clear who is really the boss of Ontario Place.

Officially, it’s supposed to be the provincial government, but lots of other institutions and organizations, with some justification, insist on having a say.

They range from the City of Toronto to the Canadian National Exhibition, the Toronto Transit Commission, to nearby residents and more recently (and rightly so) to Indigenous peoples. Inclusiveness is important, but the decision-making structure for Ontario Place has never been clear, so nothing gets decided.

There’s a lot to pick apart about Ford’s latest plans for Ontario Place. Why do the designs still show bleak, unsightly parking lots? Shouldn’t there be proper transit, rather than unreliable bus service?

Why should a public-owned facility cost visitors $40 to go to a water park or spa, and how many families can afford this? Will there be enough free green space? With Ford, you have to worry.

Why do we need to rebuild the concert venue? It was more fun when it was small and cheap and most of the seats were on the grass. Can’t there be a forum to showcase budding Ontario musicians who are struggling to make it in the digital age?

Most importantly, how can the public have a meaningful say? As with so many things the Ford government does, the discussion process has been remarkably closed so far.

To be fair, some high-level snap decisions may be necessary, given the endless plans to nowhere that have wafted around for years.

But let’s see if we can make Ontario Place a real place again. And let’s make Ford deliver something, rather than nothing. If he wants Ontario Place to work at last, he’ll need to listen for a change.

David Israelson is a non-practising lawyer and writer now based in Niagara-on-the-Lake, who has served on the Ontario Place board of directors.

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NO

Ken Greenberg

Greenberg Consultants

The province’s plan for Ontario Place starts from two profoundly flawed premises. The first is that it is a wasteland that needs to be resuscitated by radical surgery. The second is that the only way to do that is to largely turn it over to the private sector.

Ontario Place was, and still is, first and foremost a park. That is how it was conceived by its creators, architect Eberhard Zeidler and Michael Hough in 1970 and how it has remained, despite decades of wilful neglect. This reality has been hidden in plain sight all along and had the public been consulted that would have been clear.

Mayor John Tory recognized it in his 2012 report describing it as “an iconic public park that will reconnect Ontarians to the waterfront.” If further proof were needed, Ontario Place has been wonderfully and intensively used by the over a million members of the public during COVID-19 for all manner of informal activities, from cycling, strolling picnicking, swimming and fishing, all with virtually no programming. It can be described as a lifesaver.

Fifty years on, what is needed is a skilful reimagining of Ontario Place in keeping with the spirit of optimism and innovative design that gave rise to it from Zeidler’s iconic pods and Cinesphere recognized as world heritage sites, Hough’s ecologically inspired island landscapes and Eric McMillan’s memorable Children’s Village — all interwoven in a unique and welcoming park setting. There is no conservation management plan.

What we got instead are three discrete, imported private attractions behind expensive paywalls. A 450,000 square foot spa; a sophisticated, themed recreation complex; and an expanded concert venue together occupy two-thirds of the 155-acre site.

Each appears in isolation. In a sense the “plan” is too small and unambitious in its scope. What is missing from the province’s vision is what happens to the in between spaces, continuing the brilliant transformation that started with Trillium Park by extending that quality of landscape over the entire site. Also missing, beyond vague words, are meaningful connections to the 195 acres of Exhibition Place, a vast publicly owned untapped resource just across Lake Shore Blvd. W.

A truly consolidated “Lakefront Park” would offer an array of experiences and a grand new waterfront gathering place, including recreation, entertainment, major annual events, theatres, marinas, art galleries, restaurants and heritage sites that would serve locals and act as a major international tourism draw. Between buildings and stretching across Lake Shore Blvd., attractive landscapes would provide freely accessible park spaces that would extend like an emerald arm across the waterfront.

Such a combined Lakefront Park would serve the needs of an expanding population for vibrant cultural, commercial and tourism activities. In the same spirit that other future-thinking cities, such as Sydney, Chicago and Barcelona, have treated their entire waterfronts, linked parks would create a seamlessly connected lakefront.

Ontario Place and a series of public spaces along the southern edge of Exhibition Place, with an enhanced shoreline, would form a great unified park on the water. With their protected waterways and naturalized landscaped setting traversed by the Martin Goodman Trail, the Ontario Place islands would remain jewels on the waterfront.

Exhibition Place could continue to accommodate the fairgrounds for the Canadian National Exhibition and other infrastructure improvements to accommodate conventions, sports, hotels, transit renewal, and restaurants — all within improved green spaces, plus new housing and mixed development at the north end linked to the new Ontario Line/GO intermodal station, which could help to pay for this transformation.

The pregnant question, of course, is who is going to make and implement this publicly led combined master plan? It just so happens we have part of the answer in the form of Waterfront Toronto, one of the world’s preeminent agencies of its kind, with a great track record of partnership with government and public engagement and whose designated area of influence already encompasses both Ontario Place (where it created Trillium Park) and Exhibition Place.

Great cities are known for their great parks and open spaces. Why would we ever squander the inherent value of an irreplaceable public asset of Ontario Place, when even from a purely financial standpoint an expansive and generous waterfront park network is a more powerful economic development strategy for the city and the province, not because it generates profit on its own site, but because it contributes to the vitality and prosperity of the city and province as a whole.

Ken Greenberg is principal of Greenberg Consultants and former director of urban design and architecture for the City of Toronto.

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The Debate: Is the Ontario Place redevelopment plan the right one? - Toronto Star
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