An artist rendering of the new Ontario Science Centre planned for the Toronto waterfront.Supplied
Premier Doug Ford unveiled the winning design and a $1.04-billion price tag for the new Ontario Science Centre on Toronto’s waterfront, charging ahead with plans to move the attraction, despite critics who were outraged by the abrupt shuttering of the facility’s long-time home two years ago.
The new attraction will be ready “as early as 2029,” with work starting this year, the government said on Thursday. The total contract cost includes design, financing, construction and 30 years of maintenance at the Ontario Place site.
The relocated facility will be smaller than the former science centre northeast of the city’s downtown. It is to take shape next to the future home of Therme, the massive proposed Austrian-owned spa and waterpark selected to anchor the province’s revitalization of Ontario Place, which also includes an enlarged concert venue and parkland.
Both projects have prompted fierce opposition, as the province spends an estimated $2.2-billion – $1.8-billion more than first suggested – to revive Ontario Place, a 55-year-old defunct amusement park built on artificial islands in Lake Ontario that was shut in 2012 amid flagging attendance.
The winning science centre design, selected after a competitive bidding process that wrapped up in the fall, envisions a new structure of white sail-like panels and glass.
Ontario Science Partners, a collaboration that includes Hariri Pontarini Architects, won the provincial government contract to design, build, finance and maintain the new facility.Supplied
The contract was awarded to a private consortium that includes Toronto’s prominent Hariri Pontarini Architects, currently working on renovations to the Royal Ontario Museum, and the internationally renowned Oslo-based firm Snohetta.
The plan involves the renovation and reuse of Ontario Place’s existing structures that jut into the lake – the golf-ball-like Cinesphere IMAX theatre and the so-called Pods, both designed by the late Toronto architect Eberhard Zeidler.
“This is stunning. This is world class,” a beaming Premier told reporters, standing in front of poster-sized renderings at the Ontario Place site. He went on to compare the proposed building to the iconic Sydney Opera House.
Mr. Ford also repeated his assertion that relocating the science centre would save taxpayers money over the long term. But the project has long been mired in questions over its costs.
Provincial Auditor-General’s reports have said the calculations the government relied on to back up its money-saving rationale for moving the centre were inaccurate. They failed to take into account hundreds of millions of dollars in added expenses, including a $400-million parking garage, and higher construction-cost estimates, according to the audits.
Opinion: Doug Ford shrinks Ontario Science Centre to fit in temporary home at Toronto Harbourfront
Local advocates battling the redevelopment have said Ontario Place should be entirely converted into a publicly accessible park, as part of it has been already. Critics have also argued that it made more sense to preserve the existing, distinctive science centre building, designed by the late Raymond Moriyama, rather than moving it.
The province set off a storm of controversy when it suddenly closed the existing half-century-old building, in Toronto’s Flemingdon Park neighbourhood, in June, 2024, citing an engineering report that found the deteriorating facility’s roof could collapse after a snowfall. (It has since opened a temporary exhibit at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre.)
Opposition MPPs and other critics said the report did not in fact recommend the closing, and note that the roof has not collapsed, despite recent record snowfall. They say replacing roof tiles and carrying out other needed renovations would have cost less than creating a new building.
Liberal MPP Adil Shamji, who represents the riding where the old science centre is located, said it would cost an estimated $200-million to fix the old building. He said the $1-billion cost for the new structure could have been better spent on the province’s health care system.
Questioned on Thursday by reporters about the sudden closing, Mr. Ford pushed back: “You have kids? Would you put them in that building? Because I wouldn’t put my kids in there. And as the Premier, I’m not taking a chance.”
Critics have long warned that a new science centre at Ontario Place would have to be much smaller than the sprawling former site’s 568,000 square feet, with less space for exhibits. According to an Auditor-General’s report, the old building had 134,000 square feet of exhibit space.
But Mr. Ford said Thursday that at the new site, the “actual exhibition space is a lot larger,” a claim also included in a promotional video shown at the event.
However, the new building is only 220,000 square feet, Tourism Minister Stan Cho told reporters, and includes 120,000 square feet of “direct exhibit space.”
Asked to explain the discrepancy, Scott Clark, Mr. Cho’s spokesman, said in an e-mail that the new centre would have “15 per cent more permanent exhibition space,” but did not provide any details. He did not address the square footage numbers the minister provided.
In a press release, the government had initially said the facility would be 400,000 square feet. A spokeswoman for Mr. Ford, Hannah Jensen, said this larger figure includes the building’s basement, the renovated Pods and the Cinesphere, as well as two of Ontario’s Place’s existing bridges.