Toronto Ontario Place | ?m | ?s | Infrastructure ON

[lenaitch]

I wonder how suitable the current OSC footprint is for housing. A lot of it seems to be slopeside and/or flood plain.

I don't know if the OSC has holdings like a museum. Typically, what you see on display at a museum is only a fraction of all the artefacts in its possession. Storage and other 'back-of-house' needs can eat up a lot of space. If so, I'm wondering if the space allocated is sufficient?

 

[wopchop]

I wonder how suitable the current OSC footprint is for housing. A lot of it seems to be slopeside and/or flood plain.

Most of the conditions that make part of the site unsuitable are also conditions that the Province could change.
Discounting any ravine land, there appears to be a substantial amount of land along Don Mills from Eglinton south to Gateway that could be built on.

 

[Northern Light]

I wonder how suitable the current OSC footprint is for housing. A lot of it seems to be slopeside and/or flood plain.

Discussed, by me, here:

Toronto - Ontario Place | ?m | ?s | Infrastructure Ontar

Re the knocks on the OSC being overly "interiorized": (1) it only really pertains to the bottommost building--and there are enough glimpses to the outside there and on the way down there that one is always conscious of the symbiosis w/nature, in a "getting there is half the fun" way (IOW it's...

urbantoronto.ca

Excluding the north parking lot which is already the subject of redevelopment plans, the site is ~10ha / 25 acres.

The south parking lot is is ~1.3ha, that's the only zero conflict portion (doesn't require any demolition of the existing footprint, and doesn't block the view of same.

Roughly 7ha would be protected either as floodplain or ravine lands in a typical application.

That leaves roughly just shy of 2ha which would be the main building up top and the landscaped area in front.

Assuming you wish to retain the main building and view of same, that's out; but if that's on the table, then you have about 3ha and change to work with. (just over 7 acres)

 

[yrt+viva=1system]

I wonder how suitable the current OSC footprint is for housing. A lot of it seems to be slopeside and/or flood plain.

I don't know if the OSC has holdings like a museum. Typically, what you see on display at a museum is only a fraction of all the artefacts in its possession. Storage and other 'back-of-house' needs can eat up a lot of space. If so, I'm wondering if the space allocated is sufficient?

Going back at least a decade, I remember them having some holdings in storage. This was behind the main halls from what I remember having given a tour/short cut to other exhibit halls when it's very busy.

Also the Science Centre has classrooms and fully functioning labs that they use for school trips and summer camp.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

I've seen rumors that the existing science centre buildings are in terrible shape according to their financial records (admittedly I don't understand how to read that information). As I understand, the province leases the building to the science centre, and I wonder if this has play in he decision making... Perhaps the Ontario Place location would be easier to remediate? Just not sure why they wouldn't come out and say. The closure of the bridge may be permanent?

The City owns the land and leases it to the Province, who own/operate the OSC.
But even it's true the building is in terrible shape (I wasn't aware of the bridge closure until the past few days), that's still a choice by the Province. And this government has had 5 years where they could have initiated a rehab of the OSC site, if their goal wasn't to move it to Ontario Place.

(And Ontario Place is also in a fair degree of disrepair, for all the obvious and similar reasons. These places have been allowed to falll into their current state; it didn't happen out of nowhere or separate from what is now happening.)

 

[Coolibop]

Correct it is the province at the end of the day... If anyone one is interested, the Ontario Science Centres' name on paper is The Centennial Centre of Science and Technology who lease the building from Infrastructure Ontario (who leases the land from the city for $1/year as you indicated). The latter (infra Ontario) is responsible for major repairs on the buildings.

Perhaps the renos of the current site are far too cost prohibitive. They are bussing people to the back entrance for over a year now and it can't be cheap. I wish there was some indication of what was wrong...

Looking at the Financials over the last few years, it was suggested to me that accumulated deficit, cash flow and net loss numbers look bad; but not my area of expertise and perhaps someone on here can comment. I just wonder if there is more at play here. As a member, I must say the exhibits are a bit dated, and not in greatest state of repair...maybe it's a way for the province to divest in some of its assets that have been struggling? Get rid of some of of the old and maybe high cost assets (exhibits) and shrink to something more manageable?

 

[yrt+viva=1system]

Came across this on reddit but take it as a grain of salt:

It's not falling apart. There's structural cracks in the supports for the main bridge (that's the bridge which goes from the entry building to the lower exhibit buildings). The problem is the bridge supports are built on Toronto Region Conservation Authority land (greenspace). There's no road to bring in machinery to fix the supports, and the Science Centre can't cut down trees to build a road because the valley is TRCA regulated. So visitors are being bussed from the main building down to the lower exhibits. The buildings are ok. They're old and need repair like any old building. And some of the exhibits need to be refreshed. The main building and parking lots on the west side of Don Mills Road are not on TRCA land. Doug may be talking about this land, or he may be trying to get access for his developer buddies to build down in the valley, on more greenspace. And I highly doubt that any new housing built in that area will be for low income or RGI. Just look at the cost of the units on the old Celestica site on the north-west corner of Don Mills & Eglinton.

 

[Northern Light]

Correct it is the province at the end of the day... If anyone one is interested, the Ontario Science Centres' name on paper is The Centennial Centre of Science and Technology who lease the building from Infrastructure Ontario (who leases the land from the city for $1/year as you indicated). The latter (infra Ontario) is responsible for major repairs on the buildings.

Perhaps the renos of the current site are far too cost prohibitive. They are bussing people to the back entrance for over a year now and it can't be cheap. I wish there was some indication of what was wrong...

Looking at the Financials over the last few years, it was suggested to me that accumulated deficit, cash flow and net loss numbers look bad; but not my area of expertise and perhaps someone on here can comment. I just wonder if there is more at play here. As a member, I must say the exhibits are a bit dated, and not in greatest state of repair...maybe it's a way for the province to divest in some of its assets that have been struggling? Get rid of some of of the old and maybe high cost assets (exhibits) and shrink to something more manageable?

I can read financials.

So before I discuss what they do say, there's something major they do not say:

Given the above, we lack a clear understanding from the Financials of the state of major capital needs on site.

***

The second thing we learn is how utterly miserly the province has been with OSC.

I want you to compare two numbers:

That's not of alot money...............

But wait......is that what's really being transferred every year on a net basis? No

The province recovers some of it through lease payments:

*****

Here's the Statement of Operations (for all intents and purposes, the Income Statement)

The operation loss for the year is ~2.5M That's not great, but hardly catastrophic. If the province gave the OSC the same sweetheart lease deal as the City gives them, the OSC would have netted (profited) about the same last year.

***

Here's something interesting, the break down of cost-recovery by facility/program

So they lose 400k per year on the Omnimax.

They also lose money on international sales/rentals (I'm not clear if this is the OSC renting stuff to others, or renting stuff from others, but either way that's not good)

What really has my eyes bugging out, they lose money on concessions! And look how low that revenue number is..........how is that even possible. The hot dog cart outside my local Canadian tire pulls in twice that every year.

****

This shows that capital assets are under invested in (does not include the building itself as noted above, but only exhibits, classrooms etc etc.

****

So in sum total, the numbers are not dire..

They do, however, show:

Miserly provincial grants that too low, leasing costs that excessive; very poor business planning.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I can read financials.

So before I discuss what they do say, there's something major the do not say:

View attachment 470503

Given the above, we lack a clear understanding from the Financials of the state of major capital needs on site.

***

The second thing we learn is how utterly miserly the province has been with OSC.

I want you to compare two numbers:

View attachment 470507

That's not of money...............

But wait......is that what's really being transferred every year on a net basis? No

The province recovers some of it through lease payments:

View attachment 470510

*****

Here's the Statement of Operations (for all intents and purposes, the Income Statement)

View attachment 470512

The operation loss for the year is ~2.5M That's not great, but hardly catastrophic. If the province gave the OSC the same sweetheart lease deal as the City gives them, the OSC would have netted (profited) about the same last year.

***

Here's something interesting, the break down of cost-recovery by facility/program

View attachment 470513

So they lose 400k per year on the Omnimax.

They also lose money on international sales/rentals (I'm not clear if this is the OSC renting stuff to others, or renting stuff from others, but either way that's not good)

What really has my eyes bugging out, they lose money on concessions! And look how low that revenue number is..........how is that even possible. The hot dog cart outside my local Canadian tire pulls in twice that every year.

****

This shows that capital assets are under invested in (does not include the building itself as noted above, but only exhibits, classrooms etc etc.

View attachment 470518

****

So in sum total, the numbers are not dire..

They do, however, show:

Miserly provincial grants that too low, leasing costs that excessive; very poor business planning.

Pandemic/post-pandemic impacts. You probably have to go back to 19/20 numbers to get a good sense (also correlate the attendance between 19/20 and 21/22)

AoD

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

That sucks about the bridge. But I guess the good news is (or would have been) that Doug Ford is defanging the Consevation Authorities so maybe they wouldn't have been able to stop a rebuild

It's hard to imagine that whatever the deal with the bridge is is irrerperable. I'm kinda sad to hear it's closed because it was part of the thing; going from the entry hall, across the bridge and into the exciting stuff.

 

[Northern Light]

Ok, further clarification of the above is required................

Their fiscal year matches the province, but backwards, by which I mean they report their 2022 fiscal year as April '21 to Mar '22.

So the above is really a COVID year.

So I went back to 2019 to see what the books look like in a more normal year.

So in 2019 they reported a net profit of 2.8M and a more sensible concessions number of $433,000

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

That sucks about the bridge. But I guess the good news is (or would have been) that Doug Ford is defanging the Consevation Authorities so maybe they wouldn't have been able to stop a rebuild

It's hard to imagine that whatever the deal with the bridge is is irrerperable. I'm kinda sad to hear it's closed because it was part of the thing; going from the entry hall, across the bridge and into the exciting stuff.

I find it laughable that a province which went nuclear legislatively re: TRCA and did nothing to prevent functional wetlands from getting filled can't somehow get themselves to rip up a few trees to fix one of their capital assets.

AoD

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Ok, further clarification of the above is required................

Their fiscal year matches the province, but backwards, by which I mean they report their 2022 fiscal year as April '21 to Mar '22.

So the above is really a COVID year.

So I went back to 2019 to see what the books look like in a more normal year.


View attachment 470521

So in 2019 they reported a net profit of 2.8M and more sensible concessions numbers of $433,000

Still pretty miserable considering OSC was once the world leading model for STEM museums.

AoD

 

[Coolibop]

What really has my eyes bugging out, they lose money on concessions! And look how low that revenue number is..........how is that even possible. The hot dog cart outside my local Canadian tire pulls in twice that every year.

... in 2019 they reported a net profit of 2.8M and more sensible concessions numbers of $433,000

The consessions at the OSC were mostly shut during covid and I'm happy they are fully back (they do have a great selection).

When we see poor net revenues... Are these typical of museums I wonder? I went to compare against Toronto Zoo (net 3.5 million in 2019) and ROM (almost even in '18-19) as examples and they aren't too far off from breaking even as far as I can tell. This is also including subsidies from the city and province respectively...

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

The consessions at the OSC were mostly shut during covid and I'm happy they are fully back (they do have a great selection).

When we see poor net revenues... Are these typical of museums I wonder? I went to compare against Toronto Zoo (net 3.5 million in 2019) and ROM (almost even in '18-19) as examples and they aren't too far off from breaking even as far as I can tell. This is also including subsidies from the city and province respectively...

These cultural institutions aren't meant to make money so I am not surprised to see them generally breaking even - but the actual amount of revenue is what's telling.

AoD