Ontario Place redevelopment plan features underground parking for more than 2,000 vehicles, felling of around 850 trees

The city’s review will include whether this underground parking is “necessary or desirable,” said Mayor John Tory.

Thestar.com
Dec. 9, 2022
Ben Mussett and David Rider

Newly emerging plans for Ontario Place include a five-level subterranean parking lot for more than 2,000 vehicles and the need to chop down more than 800 trees to make way for a private spa complex.

The details are causing alarm among critics already dismayed by the Ontario government’s plans to lease part of the iconic, provincially owned site to a for-profit Austrian company called Therme Group that specializes in “well-being” resorts.

“We’re talking about monstrous structures on our waterfront -- going up to nine storeys in places -- that will just utterly dominate the view of Ontario Place,” said Norm Di Pasquale, co-chair of the advocacy group Ontario Place for All.

The province has submitted to the city a development application to create a “world-class, year-round destination” on the 155-acre site of the waterfront amusement park, which opened in 1971 and was shuttered in 2012.

In addition to 2,118 parking spaces planned for the underground garage, which would connect to the Therme spa and a renovated Live Nation amphitheatre, the development proposal includes 632 surface parking spots. There are another 5,500 parking spots across the street, at Exhibition Place.

According to the plans, Therme’s $350-million “recreational and wellness facility” would have a nine-storey, or 45-metre, peak. The mix of indoor and outdoor space would offer saunas and steam rooms, massage therapy, light and LED therapy, cryo-saunas, vitamin and mineral pools, as well as a large water park area.

While that would be for paying customers only, Ontario Place would get 12 acres of new public space including parkland, gathering places and a downtown beach.

Citing a Globe and Mail report that the province will pay to build the parking garage, local councillor Ausma Malik said: “Investing $300 million in public funds to subsidize a private spa and waterpark, and accompanying parking structure, is a terrible use of taxpayer dollars.

“We could invest that money to build an exceptional public park available for everyone to use and enjoy.”

Mayor John Tory, answering questions after an unrelated news conference, acknowledged concerns over the parking structure and said such issues are why it’s important that city staff and city council are getting a chance to review the plans.

“It is this kind of thing that we will be looking at,” Tory told reporters.

“I think that (review) will include whether or not a 2,000-car parking garage is something that’s necessary or desirable,” the mayor said.

“We are building a very expensive transit line, in partnership with the province and the federal government, that’s going to end up pretty close by there.”

While the Ford government can, and has, overruled local planning decisions using ministerial zoning orders, Tory said he doesn’t consider the city review of the Ontario Place plan as “window dressing.”

“We take it seriously. Our public officials take it seriously and I’m very optimistic that, if there are major concerns that arise in the course of that review, that (the Ford government) will take them seriously, too,” Tory said.

The documents also reveal plans to remove 864 trees, almost 40 per cent of Ontario Place’s total canopy, on what will become the spa site.

The total number of trees required to be felled during redevelopment is unknown, because plans are still developing, states an arborist’s report, but “100 per cent of trees within the Therme area will be potentially impacted.”

The report includes plans to plant just over 3,000 new trees at Ontario Place, but does not say where they will go.

Asked for details of the parking structure, including the cost and whether taxpayers will bear it, a spokesperson for Ontario Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma said: “Parking arrangements will be confirmed pending city review and outcome of the ongoing (environmental assessment) process.”

In a statement, Gregg Lintern of the planning division said, “The city will act in its usual role as approval authority under the Ontario Planning Act and staff will make a recommendation to council by the end of 2023.”

The city and province have agreed, he said, to “timely information-sharing, the ability to have public consultation on the application and meaningful responses to issues identified as a part of the established development review process led by city planning.”