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

[Northern Light]

Indeed. There are parts of the city which do have limited park land, but not within 1km (~quick walking distance) of this specific location.

Well......

Lets look at the City's map for parkland sufficiency based on being above/below the 28m2 per person standard:

Green is good, yellow through orange less good to terrible.

Ontario Place is 'white' as it has no population against which to measure. (somewhat deceptive from a presentation point of view, as there is certainly demand, but I digress)

Lets zoom in on OP:

There is, in fact an orange section just a bit north of OP, essentially following the Dufferin Corridor.

But to the extent that downtown overall and South Parkdale are both deemed parks deficient, and in so far as buying space of any significance to add parkland within the aforementioned area is prohibitively expensive and also limited by heritage buildings.....

There's definitely a thing as too much park....

Toronto is roughly 13.5% parkland, that is nowhere near the top of major cities globally which have parks provisions well into the 20s.

We're nowhere near 'too much park'.

Everyone in Toronto wants more parks but very few lobby to increase the Park/Forest funding and maintenance suffers. IMO, quality matters and many existing park spaces suffer for maintenance: more parks in Toronto for the last 20 years has meant less maintenance across all parks.

No question we need to bump up the Parks operations and capital budgets, significantly. I'm not convinced at all that people wouldn't support this. I would argue that senior parks management in Toronto has been very poor at advocating for the department and inclined to meekly accept cuts and funding shortfalls.

It hasn't helped matters any that where they have had more money, it has not been spent as well as one might hope, too often.

The value provided to users is highly location dependant: if it wasn't location dependant everyone in downtown Toronto would just go to Downsview for their daily dog walk; or, for hyperbole, Algonquin Park which is 10x the size of Toronto with roughly 1/2 an acre of park space per Toronto resident.

This is just silly. Of course parks are location dependent, but I can dig up the data on where High Park users come from in Toronto and its not majority local.

Indeed over 40% of High Park users come from further than 10km away!

A regional waterfront park will draw from a much wider area than will your local dog park.

I don't have a way to rank any given park and it's usefulness, but I'd bet $10 Million upgrading Coronation Park would go further to making local residents happy than $10M at Ontario Place. Coronation Park, aside from the bike path to travel through it, is very low use.

Coronation Park is not low use; if you head down there any weekend in summer with nice weather, its quite well used.

The park already has 3 class A baseball diamonds, washrooms, a picnic shelter and a DOLA.

There is certainly a case to be made for finding room to a top tier children's playground, and a children's waterplay. Possibly tennis courts too. But that's probably the limit without eating into other facilities or cutting down lots of trees.

 

[rbt]

Coronation Park is not low use; if you head down there any weekend in summer with nice weather, its quite well used.

I lived in Fort York. In Winter you can easily find your own footsteps in that park 1 week after putting them down. There are a few seasonal uses as you mention but even at peak times it's far from crowded enough to require an expansion: try doing that in Liberty Village Park.

Likewise, I think the parking lot conversion in Fleet/Fort York/Lake Shore gets more use in the off season than Coronation Park despite being a tiny fraction of the size. It's simply too far south for locals to bother with for a large part of the year, and Ontario Place is even further away from residents it would serve than Coronation Park is.


Long story short, I wouldn't complain if Ontario Place became a park and the city increased their funding of the Toronto Parks/Forestry department accordingly, but that's not happened for any other park expansions in the last 15 years.

Edit: If someone recommended moving Allan Lamport stadium to Ontario Place and building the current stadium land out as a park, I'd probably be in favour of that. It would be a park where locals would use it, and those already travelling to watch Rugby will go to Ontario Place roughly as easily as the current location.

 

[Northern Light]

I lived in Fort York. In Winter you can easily find your own footsteps in that park 1 week after putting them down. There are a few seasonal uses as you mention but even at peak times it's far from crowded enough to require an expansion: try doing that in Liberty Village Park.

I wouldn't disagree with the above, though, I would assert that winter traffic in all parks, especially those focused on nature or on summer sports falls off considerably (by ~85%)

Winter amenities would change that some (large leisure skating facility, cross country ski trail, fire pits, year-round washrooms etc.) but those may displace other amenities.

Likewise, I think the parking lot conversion in Fleet/Fort York/Lake Shore gets more use in the off season than Coronation Park despite being a tiny fraction of the size. It's simply too far south for locals to bother with for a large part of the year, and Ontario Place is even further away from residents it would serve than Coronation Park is.

Part of the challenge here is that we know the CNE grounds will not stay entirely as they are; but we don't really know how they will evolve either. The landscape is murky.

Distance per se is a factor, but when we note that 40% of visitors to High Park come from 10km+ away, we clearly show that can be overcome.

The question is one of whether the park is set up w/that drawing power; and ease of access (High Park is right on the door of 2 subway stations, and the 501, and 506

Long story short, I wouldn't complain if Ontario Place became a park and the city increased their funding of the Toronto Parks/Forestry department accordingly, but that's not happened for ay other park expansions in the last 15 years.

This is the big challenge for Janie Romoff's replacement. We will have to see who they find, and whether they have the skills, ambition and drive to get Parks the resources it needs.

Edit: If someone recommended moving Allan Lamport stadium to Ontario Place and building the current stadium land out as a park, I'd probably be in favour of that. It would be a park where locals would use it, and those already travelling to watch Rugby will go to Ontario Place roughly as easily as the current location.

Yes *

* But put it over the current surface parking, not over the green space.

 

[Northern Light]

Spacing has a 2-part piece out on this project.

As one might imagine, it is in opposition to the Therme proposal.

Whatever one's take, I did find one idea raised that I don't recall seeing before, which is that the new beach proposed is not where the existing one is; and that this new beach may have significant pollution issues. That's discussed in Part 1.

What’s really happening at Ontario Place? (Part 1) - Spacing Toronto

The investigation by Ontario Auditor-General Bonnie Lysyk into the Ford government’s removal of 7,400 acres of prime farmland and wetlands from the Greenbelt to enrich a favoured group of developers by more than $8 billion, and the integrity commissioner’s finding that Housing Minister Steve...

spacing.ca

In Part 2, the focus turns a bit more to the Science Centre, and discusses that the proposed new OSC is only 1/2 the size of the current one and would be unable to hold all of the current 'star' exhibits.

What’s really happening at Ontario Place? (Part 2) - Spacing Toronto

Sequel to Part 1 of “What’s really happening at Ontario Place?“ Ontario Place was conceived by Conservative Premier John Robarts in 1968 as an urban park for families that would showcase the best that Ontario has to offer. Now all these years later, the government of Premier Doug Ford has signed...

spacing.ca

 

[UtakataNoAnnex]

And folks are still defending this as a good and "necessary" move... /bleh

 

[generalcanada]

the 1st article is ok. makes points about the beach which i dont care for but if it makes people happy then therme will find a way to change it up so the beach is at the back. (bet that wont be the last complaint)
the 2nd one is all over the place the entire 1st paragraph seems to argue for tearing down budweiser stage? then goes on to make the same points i made in the past to build on the parking lots at the EX ("but muh culture") LOL good luck with that

weird followup article

 

[Altec]

I hope this gets built. I am really curious of the before and after reactions

It's in a terrible location but the hate is getting too much. Like complaining the trees won't be mature right away or complaining about it being close to Lake Shore road when there are beaches right near it. I doubt they would even make those arguments if it was turned fully into a park.

 

[Ward8]

the 1st article is ok. makes points about the beach which i dont care for but if it makes people happy then therme will find a way to change it up so the beach is at the back. (bet that wont be the last complaint)
the 2nd one is all over the place the entire 1st paragraph seems to argue for tearing down budweiser stage? then goes on to make the same points i made in the past to build on the parking lots at the EX ("but muh culture") LOL good luck with that

weird followup article

Not sure where how you got that out of the Live Nation bit. They were making comparisons about the leases and giving background on how this government has been managing the space.

 

[generalcanada]

I hope this gets built. I am really curious of the before and after reactions

It's in a terrible location but the hate is getting too much. Like complaining the trees won't be mature right away or complaining about it being close to Lake Shore road when there are beaches right near it. I doubt they would even make those arguments if it was turned fully into a park.

wanna know whats funny? the trees would need to be torn down anyway because the soil is so contaminated that the entire west island needs to be clear cut.
that's why there is no environmental report

 

[generalcanada]

Not sure where how you got that out of the Live Nation bit. They were making comparisons about the leases and giving background on how this government has been managing the space.

Ontario Place was conceived by Conservative Premier John Robarts in 1968 as an urban park for families that would showcase the best that Ontario has to offer. Now all these years later, the government of Premier Doug Ford has signed long-term leases with two foreign-controlled companies to redevelop and manage two key elements of Ontario Place. Therme Group is based in Austria, while Live Nation — which has a monopoly to manage Ontario Place’s two music venues — is based in Beverley Hills, California. An international conglomerate which also owns Ticketmaster, Live Nation has no incentive to showcase up-and-coming performing artists from Ontario — or Canada — at the two venues at Ontario Place that it manages, Budweiser Stage and Echo Beach. Live Nation, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange, has a mandate to maximize profits for its shareholders, which includes the Saudi Arabian government, which purchased a 5.7% stake in the company through its sovereign wealth fund in 2020. Live Nation has been the subject of numerous lawsuits and Congressional investigations in connection with 10 fatalities and 5,000 injuries that occurred at the Astroworld Festival in Houston in 2021; and at other Live Nation concerts. In addition, Live Nation has been the subject of lawsuits alleging anticompetitive conduct in connection with its ownership and management of Ticketmaster – which gives Live Nation a monopoly in both managing concert venues and selling tickets for those same venues. I requested an interview with a representative of Live Nation but received no response. I asked the Ontario Ministry of Infrastructure about the terms and length of the lease it has signed with Live Nation, and received no response. So we don’t know how long Live Nation will have a monopoly on the two concert venues at Ontario Place.

this whole paragraph is just all over the place. it doesn't make a point at all. it's just saying "ticketmaster bad".
Who owns budweiser stage anyway? doesn't livenation own it in its entirety?

 

[onetoronto]

Looking forward to see the final product. All the naysayers oppose this project for one reason only, and it's Doug Ford. Luckily, they're in a minority.

 

[adma]

the 2nd one is all over the place the entire 1st paragraph seems to argue for tearing down budweiser stage? then goes on to make the same points i made in the past to build on the parking lots at the EX ("but muh culture") LOL good luck with that

Aside from everything, keep in mind that when it comes to the pro-Ontario Place Zeidlerphiles, the Bud Stage has *always* had a bad rep as a heavy-handed replacement for the Forum--"where the destruction started", IOW. And its defense has always carried a touch of "ur just jellus" by those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing....

 

[T3G]

Looking forward to see the final product. All the naysayers oppose this project for one reason only, and it's Doug Ford. Luckily, they're in a minority.

This type of bluster is unworthy of this board.

 

[UtakataNoAnnex]

This type of bluster is unworthy of this board.

...to be fair, it was a conclusion of an extensive poll conducted by our esteemed member upon eligible voters in the GTA region. This person just hasn't posted the results of their findings here yet...so we can all wait with bated breath when they do, as I am confident that this assertion wasn't trolled out without evidence for the shite high fives.

 

[dag]

Was at OP to watch the airshow. IMO the place is a disgraceful dump although the potential is there. I don't see the public money that will be required coming forward to rejuvenate the place. Practically private money will be required. We can continue to complain about that and get nothing done as has been the case for quite some time or get on with it. There is nothing that draws me there when I come to Toronto. Not even an airshow any longer that is mediocre at best. Bottom line is that it continues to rot or we make the best of what is offered.