Ontario Place parking garage a symbol of all that is wrong
June 27, 2025
An artist’s rendering of what the massive new garage at Ontario Place will look like.
Ontario government
By Christopher Hume Contributor
Christopher Hume is the Toronto Star's former urban issues columnist.
Turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse is one thing, turning a 3,000-car parking garage into a major waterfront attraction quite another. But if Ontario Premier Doug Ford is to be believed — difficult at the best of times — the massive five-storey structure will play an important part in the success of his highly dubious Ontario Place remake.
According to Ontario tourism minister Stan Cho, however, not only will the $400-million shoebox draw drivers from across the city, province and even country, it will actually generate $60 million for provincial coffers annually, or about $160,000 daily, 365 days a year. That may sound a bit exaggerated but Cho blithely assures skeptics, Ford’s shiny new complex will attract no fewer than 6 million visitors annually.
If the minister’s numbers are accurate — highly doubtful — perhaps the unspoken truth is that the parking garage lies at the very heart of Ford’s controversial scheme. Perhaps it’s what the fuss is all about. The rest is window-dressing, or at best a life-support system for a stacked car lot.
Certainly, the renderings released this week show a series of small green spaces, all pleasant enough but feeling strangely incidental, disconnected and generic. They could be anywhere. It’s the garage that will be the most visible part of the complex, the image by which Ontario Place is known, an ominous funhouse/factory by way of Roald Dahl.
Except, of course, for the Therme luxury spa that will loom over the 63-hectare (155 acre) site, a grossly oversized terrarium that couldn’t be more out of place. Using the site for a spa that more properly belongs in, say, Milton, Mississauga or Markham is obviously wrong-headed. Worse, it smacks of a sellout.
Handing over land on the shore of Lake Ontario to the forces of banality is unconscionable and to be blunt, plain dumb. And after the stellar work of Waterfront Toronto has done since its formation in 2000, it is also inexcusable.
Critics have rightly pointed out that everything about Ford’s deal with Therme is disturbing. Why, they ask, is the province paying for the spa’s parking garage? Why is Therme’s lease for 95 years? Most important, why did Ford give away public land to a private operator, a dodgy one at that?
But in their fight with Queen’s Park, many have forgotten that Ontario Place, which opened in 1971, was shut down in 2012 because attendance had fallen beyond the point of no return. Indeed, it had become an architectural and cultural relic of an earlier, more optimistic, albeit paternalistic era, not slick enough to thrive in the digital age, not old enough to offer the charm of nostalgia.
Ontario Place was in desperate need of a transformation. But by any measure, Ford’s plan falls short. The closed-door deal-making process didn’t pass the smell test, as, inevitably, neither do the results. Any proposal that puts a monstrous parking garage in valuable public land on the waterfront is, by definition, lacking in imagination, intelligence and integrity. It fails on every level.
Given Ford’s noisome support for turning Ontario Place into a gambling casino back in 2018, no one should be surprised by the lack of sophistication in his approach to redeveloping public land. To him it is an especially juicy asset awaiting monetization. And what better way to generate cash than signing up private interests.
A unique opportunity has been squandered. The chance to bring the hopefulness of the original Ontario Place into the 21st century has been all but crushed. The notion that Ontario, let alone Toronto, is something to celebrate has been overlooked in the rush to make a buck.
That’s understandable, but only to a point. A community that adds up to nothing more than the sum of its parts risks losing the qualities that made it worth inhabiting in the first place.
Civic success can never be assumed. A city in the grips of a leader who like Doug Ford is willing to sell its waterfront for a parking garage must fight to reclaim its future.
June 27, 2025
An artist’s rendering of what the massive new garage at Ontario Place will look like.
Ontario government
By Christopher Hume Contributor
Christopher Hume is the Toronto Star's former urban issues columnist.
Turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse is one thing, turning a 3,000-car parking garage into a major waterfront attraction quite another. But if Ontario Premier Doug Ford is to be believed — difficult at the best of times — the massive five-storey structure will play an important part in the success of his highly dubious Ontario Place remake.
According to Ontario tourism minister Stan Cho, however, not only will the $400-million shoebox draw drivers from across the city, province and even country, it will actually generate $60 million for provincial coffers annually, or about $160,000 daily, 365 days a year. That may sound a bit exaggerated but Cho blithely assures skeptics, Ford’s shiny new complex will attract no fewer than 6 million visitors annually.
If the minister’s numbers are accurate — highly doubtful — perhaps the unspoken truth is that the parking garage lies at the very heart of Ford’s controversial scheme. Perhaps it’s what the fuss is all about. The rest is window-dressing, or at best a life-support system for a stacked car lot.
Certainly, the renderings released this week show a series of small green spaces, all pleasant enough but feeling strangely incidental, disconnected and generic. They could be anywhere. It’s the garage that will be the most visible part of the complex, the image by which Ontario Place is known, an ominous funhouse/factory by way of Roald Dahl.
Except, of course, for the Therme luxury spa that will loom over the 63-hectare (155 acre) site, a grossly oversized terrarium that couldn’t be more out of place. Using the site for a spa that more properly belongs in, say, Milton, Mississauga or Markham is obviously wrong-headed. Worse, it smacks of a sellout.
Handing over land on the shore of Lake Ontario to the forces of banality is unconscionable and to be blunt, plain dumb. And after the stellar work of Waterfront Toronto has done since its formation in 2000, it is also inexcusable.
Critics have rightly pointed out that everything about Ford’s deal with Therme is disturbing. Why, they ask, is the province paying for the spa’s parking garage? Why is Therme’s lease for 95 years? Most important, why did Ford give away public land to a private operator, a dodgy one at that?
But in their fight with Queen’s Park, many have forgotten that Ontario Place, which opened in 1971, was shut down in 2012 because attendance had fallen beyond the point of no return. Indeed, it had become an architectural and cultural relic of an earlier, more optimistic, albeit paternalistic era, not slick enough to thrive in the digital age, not old enough to offer the charm of nostalgia.
Ontario Place was in desperate need of a transformation. But by any measure, Ford’s plan falls short. The closed-door deal-making process didn’t pass the smell test, as, inevitably, neither do the results. Any proposal that puts a monstrous parking garage in valuable public land on the waterfront is, by definition, lacking in imagination, intelligence and integrity. It fails on every level.
Given Ford’s noisome support for turning Ontario Place into a gambling casino back in 2018, no one should be surprised by the lack of sophistication in his approach to redeveloping public land. To him it is an especially juicy asset awaiting monetization. And what better way to generate cash than signing up private interests.
A unique opportunity has been squandered. The chance to bring the hopefulness of the original Ontario Place into the 21st century has been all but crushed. The notion that Ontario, let alone Toronto, is something to celebrate has been overlooked in the rush to make a buck.
That’s understandable, but only to a point. A community that adds up to nothing more than the sum of its parts risks losing the qualities that made it worth inhabiting in the first place.
Civic success can never be assumed. A city in the grips of a leader who like Doug Ford is willing to sell its waterfront for a parking garage must fight to reclaim its future.
