Toronto moves to protect sold-off Hearn waterfront site with heritage status

Thestar.com
February 21, 2019
David Rider

The city is moving to protect the recently sold Richard L. Hearn Generating Station -- a hulking former power plant with 70-storey smokestack -- as a crucial piece of Toronto heritage.

The building “exhibits a high degree of artistic merit,” says a city planning report. It also calls the plant “a skilful application of the mid-century Style Moderne” and “an icon of the civic spirit underpinning the Port Lands creation in 1912” and changing character of the industrial zone.

The Hearn building has hosted special events in recent years including Luminato’s kickoff party, The Big Bang Bash, in 2014.

City council ordered the start of the heritage process after a surprise sale last November of the 16-acre (40-hectare) site on Unwin Ave. by provincially owned Ontario Power Generation to longtime Hearn tenants Studios of America, which hosts movie shoots and special events there.

OPG said that under conditions of the $16-million sale, Studios of America, owned by partners including prominent real estate developer Mario Cortellucci, can’t resell the site within three years and can’t put homes or other “sensitive uses” there for at least 15 years.

Councillor Paula Fletcher, whose Ward 14 Toronto-Danforth includes the Hearn, said the city can finally act after being unable to give the site full heritage protection when it was provincially owned.

“This will protect the Hearn even if there are clauses in the sale agreement that might give (Studios of America) the right to demolish after a certain amount of time,” Fletcher said. “Once this is instituted they have to take the heritage character into account for any development on that site.”

Under the Ontario Heritage Act municipalities give notice of intent to protect a site, make a case for preservation and give the owner a chance to object. Objections can trigger a review by the province’s Conservation Review Board, but council is not bound by board findings.

Once added to the list of heritage properties, a site cannot be significantly altered, or demolished, without city permission. The owner can appeal refusal of a demolition permit to the provincial Local Planning Appeal Tribunal.

Studios of America got a demolition permit in 2010 but it expired in 2017. Company president Paul Vaughan told the Star last fall he has “no hidden agenda” or plans to change a site popular with television and film production companies. The Star was unable reach him Wednesday.

City council in January also told staff to reach out to see if Toronto can buy the site from Studios of America for the same price it paid -- criticized by the NDP opposition as a sweetheart deal and defended the Progressive Conservative government -- plus reasonable costs.

The Hearn sits on polluted landfill over what was once the biggest wetland on Lake Ontario. The coal-fired power plant, built to supply electricity to growing Toronto after the Second World War, was officially opened Oct. 26, 1951 with a live radio broadcast on CFRB.

The brick-clad structure -- reputed to be one of the largest in Canada -- was expanded in 1961 and later converted to burn natural gas, with one 213-metre smokestack replacing eight smaller ones.

The province closed the plant in 1981, leaving the waterfront grounds open to the public, and in 2002 signing the 40-year lease with Studios of America. The Hearn has hosted special events in recent years including Nuit Blanche and Luminato.

If the city manages to buy the Hearn, it’s unclear what would the building would become. The planning report suggests cultural and recreational uses. People have pointed to the Tate Modern art gallery, built inside a decommissioned power plant in London, as a model.

A 2009 proposal to turn the Hearn into a lakeside skating palace, with four stacked rinks, melted amid questions over logistics and how to pay the estimated $88-million cost.