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

...the problems with this false dichotomy is that there are probably better ways to fix it than what is being offered.
 
UtakataNoAnnex said:
...the problems with this false dichotomy is that there are probably better ways to fix it than what is being offered.
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There may very well be a better way but a line of thought that is might or what if doesn't seem to have traction. Hence the place just gets worse and worse. I fear there will always be detractors no matter what is offered and wheels will continue to spin until they come off. I think what I am seeing offered is realistic given economic reality. With someone willing to invest the money required at no cost to the beleaguered taxpayer with a result that rejuvenates the property is much better than what we have now. I realize there is a wide range of opinion on this. My take is that I want a reason to go there that is available in my lifetime and this seems to be the option that will make this happen.
 
dag said:
There may very well be a better way but a line of thought that is might or what if doesn't seem to have traction. Hence the place just gets worse and worse. I fear there will always be detractors no matter what is offered and wheels will continue to spin until they come off. I think what I am seeing offered is realistic given economic reality. With someone willing to invest the money required at no cost to the beleaguered taxpayer with a result that rejuvenates the property is much better than what we have now. I realize there is a wide range of opinion on this. My take is that I want a reason to go there that is available in my lifetime and this seems to be the option that will make this happen.
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predicted rebuttal to your comment "but parking garage therefore the entire plan is bad"
 
dag said:
With someone willing to invest the money required at no cost to the beleaguered taxpayer with a result that rejuvenates the property is much better than what we have now
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generalcanada said:
predicted rebuttal to your comment "but parking garage therefore the entire plan is bad"
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The cost to the tax payer is $400-500million parking garage and $150-200million in servicing infrastructure (utilities, water, sewer, etc...). If the Ontario government is so eager to pour over half a billion into Ontario Place lands to support a private business, then they could take a fraction of that same money and spend it on remediation and landscaping, restore the pods, and call it a day. There are alternative development options that make more sense from a financial standpoint. Don't pretend like the money isn't there for alternatives, when it obviously is. The Ontario government has made it very clear they are willing to spend enormous money to support this Therme Spa project, there is no reason why a portion of that money wouldn't be spent on alternatives for the land.
 
cereal said:
The cost to the tax payer is $400-500million parking garage and $150-200million in servicing infrastructure (utilities, water, sewer, etc...). If the Ontario government is so eager to pour over half a billion into Ontario Place lands to support a private business, then they could take a fraction of that same money and spend it on remediation and landscaping, restore the pods, and call it a day. There are alternative development options that make more sense from a financial standpoint. Don't pretend like the money isn't there for alternatives, when it obviously is. The Ontario government has made it very clear they are willing to spend enormous money to support this Therme Spa project, there is no reason why a portion of that money wouldn't be spent on alternatives for the land.
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All levels of gov't constantly provide taxpayer money to private corporations through 'tax breaks' or 'incentives'. I don't hear anyone complain about that. How is this different? There was radio silence when Trudeau shilled billions for Stellantis and VW. I guess it's fine when one party does this.
 
onetoronto said:
All levels of gov't constantly provide taxpayer money to private corporations through 'tax breaks' or 'incentives'. I don't hear anyone complain about that. How is this different? There was radio silence when Trudeau shilled billions for Stellantis and VW. I guess it's fine when one party does this.
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People complain about it all of the time, you just choose to ignore it. All political parties do this, and it's horrible, and there's probably not much difference between the conservatives and liberals in this matter.
 
dag said:
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.
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Oh, we're back to the bottom-of-the-barrel "It's better than nothing!" comments. Grand.
Do you know what other proposals were submitted to the RFP? Of course you don't - because it's under wraps. You don't know if there were uses that were better. You don't know if there were financial deals that were better.

You're just making one obvious statement (it's not in good shape now because it's been left to rot) and then leaping to a completely illogical and immatterial conculsion (which, I think, is, "the airshow is also bad and this spa will at least be better than what's there now.)

onetoronto said:
All levels of gov't constantly provide taxpayer money to private corporations through 'tax breaks' or 'incentives'. I don't hear anyone complain about that. How is this different? There was radio silence when Trudeau shilled billions for Stellantis and VW. I guess it's fine when one party does this.
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Yeah, firstly this is not true but way to get to the "But whatabout Trudeau," part of the debate.
Secondly, Ford also shilled out billions for Stellantis and VW. It's the same deal.
Thirdly, there's a difference between tax incentives that encourage job creation and long-term economic benefits (which, to be clear, is not my defending the Stellantis deal) and the Ontario Place situation, which is "hiring" a private company to run a public asset for profit, effectively. (And combining this with a bait-and-switch-land-grab at the Science Centre etc. etc.)

Most people are not opposed to a private use on site - there are already 2 concert venues there, for example. Most people didn't object to the principle of an RFP asking potential users to bring forward a plan for revitaliizing the park, making it a year-round destination etc. etc.

I won't regurgitate, for the 50th time, all things people are upset about with this particular proposal but the rest of y'all "I just joined UT 2 weeks ago to say Ontario Place is great - but I'm definitely not astro-turfing" folks aren't dealing with any of the substnative concerns most people have voiced.
 
goreckm said:
People complain about it all of the time, you just choose to ignore it. All political parties do this, and it's horrible, and there's probably not much difference between the conservatives and liberals in this matter.
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It's the *both parties' neglect for OP is where we're at today here. I'm not gonna go into details on the why's, as I am not sure that's important now or even helpful...rather to concur this is pretty much on the money.

*Note: I am not sure where the NDP's brief tenure stood with OP back in the early 90's. But unless they did significant things to stave off OP's entropy, it could be argued they have their part in the blame for this as well.
 
I fear this thread is becoming more toxic than the land mass under Ontario Place.

I don’t think there’s anything here worth getting so heated about. I mean sure, despite being built upon landfill, Ontario Place is a nice waterfront parcel. But it is so isolated and inaccessible that I just don’t see the business case for the city investing any money in it right now, the “do nothing” option is the cheapest and easiest right now.

I think we revisit once we’ve seen some redevelopment of exhibition land, which is already highly valuable without a reimagined Ontario Place – being adjacent to rapid transit and amenities, albeit arguably short on parks.
 
onetoronto said:
All levels of gov't constantly provide taxpayer money to private corporations through 'tax breaks' or 'incentives'. I don't hear anyone complain about that. How is this different? There was radio silence when Trudeau shilled billions for Stellantis and VW. I guess it's fine when one party does this.
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Alright, I'll complain.

Taxpayers should not be propping up wayward businesses. Any business. If they cannot survive on their own in the free market whose virtues they endlessly sing the praises of, they should go bankrupt. End.

Is that good enough? Have I fulfilled the qualifications required to have a problem with this?
 
reinventingthewheel said:
I don’t think there’s anything here worth getting so heated about. I mean sure, despite being built upon landfill, Ontario Place is a nice waterfront parcel. But it is so isolated and inaccessible that I just don’t see the business case for the city investing any money in it right now, the “do nothing” option is the cheapest and easiest right now.

I think we revisit once we’ve seen some redevelopment of exhibition land, which is already highly valuable without a reimagined Ontario Place – being adjacent to rapid transit and amenities, albeit arguably short on parks.
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It's not THAT inaccessible. I'm old enough to remember when there were no condos around Fort York and when everything north of the Dufferin Gate was industrial wasteland. There are people there. There are bike trails. There's even transit right nearby, just poorly connected.

But more ot the point, that could and should have been resolved or more substantially addressed through this process. The Province owns OP and Toronto owns the Ex and what they should have done is work together on this whole thing. Instead they're building the "Ontario Line" - so named because it allegedly connects ONTARIO Place and the ONTARIO Science Centre. Except the Science Centre is being moved to Ontario Place and the subway isn't actually that close to there either. So the name is now dumb and in the meantime Therme has some lame shuttle bus plan so people can get from the subway to their spa.

I'm not surprised the Province didn't care to work with the city or that the City seems incapable of or disinterested a real plan for making the CNE grounds a year=round place, but it could have been done instead of all this. That's one of the big failures, IMHO, is keeping OP as a relatively isolated site instead of properly integrating that whole area into the urban fabric.

adma said:
They were responsible for a free-admission interlude, FWIW.
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Yup. I think people forget they tried a bunch of different models at Ontario Place. In the 80s, for example, Forum shows were generally included with admission. Then there was that that free admission era. And I think it was then free admission but you had to pay for everything inside a la carte and then back to an admisison model... it changed many times.
 
UtakataNoAnnex said:
And folks are still defending this as a good and "necessary" move... /bleh
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Are people defending the move? I see some defending the Therme portion (including myself), but not many defending the move of the Science Centre. If they dropped the idea to move the Science Centre, it might actually lead to other good changes. For example, they wouldn't need to eat up an existing surface parking lot, so perhaps they could reduce the size of that ridiculously large underground parkade.
 
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