A PLACE TO ROAM
$30-million waterfront park and trail opens as province completes first phase of Ontario Place revitalization project,
In Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi, they paved paradise and put up a parking lot. At Ontario Place, they did the opposite. A new $30-million, 7.5-acre waterfront park opened Monday on the site of a revitalized parking lot at the once-popular lakeside provincial attraction that was shuttered in 2012.
Premier Kathleen Wynne cut the ribbon on the new 1.3-kilometre William G. Davis Trail, named for the man who launched Ontario Place in 1971.
“Our vision for a transformed Ontario Place honours our history, our people and our landscape,” Wynne said of the Trillium Park.
The vast majority of Ontario Place — including the iconic geodesic Cinesphere dome, remains closed. But the government is hopeful Trillium Park and the Davis trail will rekindle public interest in the facility.
The new site consists of 1,200 newly planted trees, 28,000 shrubs and perennials, 1,700 tonnes of Muskoka granite
"Our vision for a transformed Ontario Place honours our history, our people and our landscape.” KATHLEEN WYNNE
from the Huntsville quarry and repairs to about 600 metres of shoreline. Some 52,000 cubic metres of soil were brought in — 3,700 truckloads — with more than half of that excess from a suburban development.
Land Inc. Project Director Patrick Morello later revealed that if the site hadn’t been raised 1.5 metres, the entire north side would currently be underwater from the rising lake levels.
“That was one of the precautionary measures we made through the study on lake waters and the shoreline,” Morello said. A shelf was created around the existing trees on-site to create a shoreline protection buffer.
Though the three-year project was slated for completion last fall, the province hit a snag with colder-than-usual weather. A hold was placed on planting the 1,200 trees “at risk of losing them,” Eleanor McMahon, Ontario Minister of Tourism Culture and Sport, said.
Another construction season was lost during the 2015 Pan Am games.
“When we enter into a large construction project, we all know there are going to be delays from time to time,” she said. “But getting it right is more important.”
Though the ceremonial purple ribbon was snipped Monday, the park-and-trail double hitter is only a part of the first phase revitalization. Over in the eastern common, the dormant Cinesphere is awaiting the installation of a new IMAX projector — estimated for reopening this fall.
The suspended pods are also being updated.
“When we enter into a large construction project, we all know there are going to be delays . . . But getting it right is more important.” ELEANOR MCMAHON MINISTER OF TOURISM, CULTURE AND SPORT
There’ll be “more to come” in a secondary phase on the west island, McMahon hinted, though details have yet to be revealed. Trillium Park and the Davis Trail are just a scratch off Ontario Place’s overall property, making up 7.5 of 75 acres.
Speaking to the press, McMahon also divulged that the province is in conversation with members of the private sector, who have expressed interest in investments at Ontario Place. “It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to talk about who they are,” she responded when pressed. “You’ll see.”
The provincial government will continue to subsidize the park, which will no longer charge for admission. The waterslides — first brought to the park in 1978, as Canada’s very first — won’t be coming back any time soon, but Ontarians also won’t see any condominiums rising on the property.
“Not a single one, nope,” McMahon said firmly.
Speaking at the opening, Chief Stacey LaForme of the Mississaugas of the New Credit veered into the per- sonal. “They told me to keep it brief, and I’m not usually a brief fellow, but I just wanted to talk to you a little bit about this shirt I’m wearing,” he said.
“I don’t wear flowers just because I like flowers . . . I do, mind you,” he added, prompting a laugh from a crowd under the new wooden pavilion. “I wear this because, in our Anishinaabe creation story, the first delineation of gender was our Mother Earth.”
He encouraged others to wear something that reminds them of the earth, as a lesson to their children as they grow up.
“If they understand earlier, their commitment and their connection to (the Earth), I think that’s a good head start for them.”