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What might the outcome be when you
gather together 40 progressive
design architects, urban planners,
environmental graphic artists and
public service advocates and ask
them to think about a future for
Ontario Place?
You get an explosion of vision and
imagination that, collectively,
smothers the provincial government’s
current plan to redevelop Toronto’s
155-acre waterfront jewel with a
wall of condominiums and resorts,
quite possibly adjacent to a casino
– and 13,000 parking spots – that
some business leaders and Toronto
politicians would like to see
developed on the grounds of
Exhibition Place.
That much became clear last weekend
when OPSEU, in conjunction with The
Martin Prosperity Institute and the
Design Industry Advisory Council,
pulled together a roomful of experts
and asked them to imagine – through
an exercise dubbed a ‘design
charrette – the future of Ontario
Place, now that the McGuinty
government has shut it down and
prepares to open bidding to the
commercial and residential
industries based on the
recommendations last summer of John
Tory and his advisory committee.
Needless to say John Tory avoided
last weekend’s charrette, though
both he and the Premier were invited
to attend.
The day-long event attracted a
blue-chip group of design architects
and others who have given the future
of Ontario Place a considerable
amount of thought. Participants
included theatre impresario David
Mirvish, urban planner Ken
Greenberg, internationally-renowned
architect Tarek El-Khatib, and
Ontario Place’s founding architect,
Eberhard Zeidler, who spoke
passionately about the need to
re-think the future of the site
without cluttering it with
high-density residential
development.
“There are many things in life and
they all needn’t involve money,”
Zeidler told the group. “To make a
city great we always add new and
interesting things to it. Then we
have to figure out how to make it
work. I believe that can be done
with Ontario Place.”
The day was divided into morning and
afternoon sessions. Before noon, the
group listened to organizers and
politicians Rosario Marchese and Mike
Layton, whose respective provincial
and municipal constituencies include
Ontario Place. Each of them
emphasized the importance of drawing
the public into the discussion over
the future of Ontario Place -- a
practice that the provincial
government has avoided, to date.
OPSEU Region 5 vice president Nancy
Pridham shared her memories of
visiting Ontario Place in her youth.
“I recall such great times down
there,” she said. “With a bit of
imagination and forward-thinking
there is no reason why we can’t
re-make Ontario Place into the
futuristic, family-friendly and fun
place it has been.”
Urban planner Greenberg said – and
participants unanimously agreed --
that the future of Ontario Place
must be tied to the future of
Exhibition Place, and that it
mustn’t include a casino and
thousands of parking spots. His firm
presented a detailed redevelopment
plan to the McGuinty government
several years that would have
integrated both sites into a
277-acre urban parkland, but the
idea went nowhere.
“What we had in mind was an enormous
public space in the centre of a
fast-growing city that would have
had perpetual access all-year-round
by improved public transit and where
the majority of attractions and uses
would have been free to the public,”
said Goldberg. “It would have met
the social, cultural and
recreational needs of the people who
visited it. Unfortunately, the plan
fell off the table at some point.”
Greenberg went on to say: “The only
way we can defeat Dwight Duncan’s
‘Casino Mile’ of 10 acres of slot
machines is to put forward an
alternative vision. It’s not good
enough to just say ‘no.’”
In the afternoon, each participant
was assigned to a ‘break out’
group and handed the task of
discussing one of four pre-assigned
future concepts for Ontario Place
and then to put their ideas in the
form of art renderings.
The four areas of discussion
included Ontario Place imagined as a
future site of:
Research and
Innovation
Sustainable
Development and Transportation
Following two hours of thought,
debate and architectural sketchings
the groups reported back to the main
plenary with their key findings and
ideas, including quick artwork
produced by several of the
architects in attendance.
A summary of the findings of the
design charrette will be published
and presented to a Town Hall meeting
on the future of Ontario Place
scheduled for 6:30 p.m., Monday
Feb. 4 at Innis Town Hall at the
University of Toronto.
