On Thursday, Premier Doug Ford revealed dramatic new renderings of the new multi-storey Ontario Science Centre building, as well as promising a huge “world-class” downtown convention complex that will be unveiled later this year.
Readers had a lot of questions. Queen’s Park bureau chief Robert Benzie took to the comment section to share what he knows about the projects so far. Here’s some of what he said:
Q: Traffic downtown is a mess, so how can school busses make it to and from the Centre in a timely way? Will the new parking structure accommodate several school busses at the same time? – Lea
A: Ford says the new Ontario Line subway will eventually get fairly close to the facility — where the existing Exhibition GO station is now. Plus the “garage Mahal” parking garage will have lots of spaces. – Robert Benzie
Q: Can you tell us where the new Science Centre will sit with respect to the Therme spa? – Steve
A: It sits on the old surface parking lot near where the battleship was moored when I was a kid. The Therme spa is on the West Island, which has been stripped of hundreds of trees and right now looks like a moonscape. (Though it should be stressed the trees were at best 50 or so years old and the whole West Island is reclaimed land using fill from subway construction etc. back in the 1960s.) – Robert Benzie
Q: Don’t we have a perfectly good world class Science Centre already, in a better location, with way more unique style and blending into the local environment? Shame on Ford and the Ontario government for continuing to promote this unwanted and unnecessary development. – James
A: Engineers might beg to differ on whether the old Science Centre was perfectly good, James. But successive Progressive Conservative and Liberal governments chose not to do much to preserve the 1969 building over the decades and the result is where we are at now. This was litigated in the election that was held one year ago today. And it will likely be an issue in the election that will be held in 2029 or 2030. – Robert Benzie
Q: The architecture of the new Science Centre building may be impressive, but it’s the inside that counts. With it being only half the size of the Don Mills’ one, people, especially kids, don’t learn as much. What’s the plan for this building? – Gloria
A: The new Science Centre is 400,000 square feet while the old one, it’s true, had 568,000 square feet. But Ford says the new building will have more exhibit space, presumably because it isn’t winding its way through a ravine and various bridges like the Raymond Moriyama building was. – Robert Benzie
Q: Is it true that the Science Centre had to be closed for structural reasons? Developers have been eyeing that land for a long time and Ford is going to allow this to happen. The spa deal at Ontario Place is an outrage. – Michael
A: The secretive Therme spa deal — a 95-year lease cloaked in mystery — has certainly raised questions. The auditor general has looked into it. But the argument for closing the original Science Centre stemmed from the engineering reports, which were indeed troubling. Remember, the government had already planned to relocate the Science Centre before the engineers concluded the roof might collapse. We broke the story of the abrupt closure, which the government insisted it didn’t want. But imagine the outcry if Ford ignored the engineering reports and kept the building opening and something happened. – Robert Benzie
Read the full story here and check out the comments section for more insights.
These questions have been edited for clarity and length.
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