Science centre the cure for Ontario Place
Ontario Place has a storied history. But does it have a future?
At present, it is a place without a presence — and has been ever since the previous Liberal government shuttered much of the facility and forgot about it.
It lives on in our memories but not in our imaginations. It is Ontario (frozen in time and) Place.
Too much of the debate to date has been built around straw men, constructing targets that can be torn down and dismissed. Casino? Crass! Ferris wheel? Juvenile! A great public space cannot be created by committee, nor is it likely to emerge out of a suggestion box. A half-century ago, then-premier John Robarts believed that if you build it, they will come.
His Progressive Conservative government had the right idea — inspired by the excitement of Expo 67 in Montreal — but the idea didn’t last. In its dying days (much like the vestiges of Expo 67), Ontario Place was a place without people where one could take one’s kids to amusement rides without lines.
It’s not enough anymore for a premier to go on gut alone. Nor is market research the only answer, lest we end up with a commercial venture bereft of cultural value.
As we look back to the time of its creation, the answer is staring us in the face: The Ontario Science Centre is of the same era, but has proven far more timeless — an enduring success that could be the solution to the woes of Ontario Place.
Also built by a PC government, the science centre is an epicentre for student field trips and family outings, yet it still feels remote — hived off on sprawling grounds that seem an inefficient use of valuable provincially owned real estate near Eglinton Ave. E. and Don Mills Rd. It is overdue for a redo — and a relocation.
With its limitless potential to reinvent itself as a showcase of changing technology, the science centre is a sure thing — which is precisely what Ontario Place needs. What better place to house its hi-tech exhibits than in the iconic Cinesphere and the cluster of pods now in place (or in future pods based on landfill from a downtown relief line, just as the old Ontario Place is built on excavated subway dirt).
A reimagined science centre would be the right fit for the majestic waterfront setting of Ontario Place. Moving it away from its current Don Mills location would also open up massive chunks of real estate for residential development that could fit alongside existing neighbourhoods. The CNE grounds, which also cry out for a revamp, would be the perfect companion for overflow parking and other spillover activities for visitors.
Transplanting the science centre would not only take Ontario Place off life support, it would infuse the area with heart and soul, true to its heritage yet tied to the future of technology. As a year-round anchor attraction, it would inoculate our waterfront against the gambling virus that infects so many redevelopments seeking cash flow over people flow.
The last blight we need on the site of our waterfront is a windowless casino that rolls the dice over the commercial future of Ontario Place, when a transformed science centre is the better bet. Public tolerance for another mistake on the lake is low, and political polarization is high. A science centre on the waterfront would win public support, giving it greater odds of success.
But we also need to keep an open mind about what works and what doesn’t. Let’s not get bogged down in brainstorming so esoteric that we land on the idea of new fish hatchery (somehow competing with the hugely successful Ripley’s Aquarium nearby).
The idea of a Ferris wheel on the waterfront has been dismissed ever since Premier Doug Ford’s days as a city councillor, more out of partisan snobbery than urban planning sensibility. Yet the London Eye has become one of the U.K.’s most popular and profitable tourist attractions, so why does it work in a world class city but sound déclassé to critics here?
Ontario Place needs to reinvent itself, but it doesn’t need to reinvent the (Ferris) wheel: it might be a good fit, as in some U.S. venues, or it may stall, as it has in other overseas ventures.
Either way, our waterfront must be built on strong and uplifting symbolism. Which is why a science centre makes sense. And why a Ferris wheel that has become iconic in London could be eye candy in Toronto. The only certainty is that a casino without windows or heart or soul doesn’t belong in the heart of our city.
Once upon a time, Ontario Place was the future. Now, it is weighed down by its past.
If it is to be reborn, it cannot stay cocooned in nostalgia. It must metamorphose into a loftier apparition — with aspirations grounded in reality.