Peter Kuitenbrouwer: Making a mess of Nathan Phillips Square
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Mayor David Miller is leaving one hell of a mess on Nathan Phillips Square for his successor, Rob Ford.
Workers with jackhammers have smashed up the concrete in the skating rink on the square, exposing the pipes that carry coolant underneath the ice surface. Lumberjacks have felled dozens of trees all over the square, including clear-cutting the thicket — with trees up to 25 years old — that once shaded the Peace Garden.
Just west of the skating rink workers this year demolished the skating pavilion, which housed the skate changing rooms and skate rental boutique, bathrooms and a concession stand that closed down years ago. Five white portable washroom trailers now line the square near the west entrance doors to City Hall.
More than half of the square, including the Peace Garden and the area west from the rink to Osgoode Hall, is fenced off by 2.5-metre high blue wire fencing. Inside are piles of dirt, piles of rusted scaffolding, heaps of smashed up cement, uprooted trees and piles of cobblestone and old boards.
On Friday, idled cherry-pickers littered the square. Two workers toiled, dismantling the pagoda-type structure in the Peace Garden. One guy carried around some cinderblock. Two men in a cherry-picker appeared to be changing lightbulbs on one of the rink’s three Freedom Arches. Most work sites were vacant; workers took the day off, due to rain, and even when the rain stopped, no one showed up to work on the rink.
During the election campaign, Mr. Ford repeatedly called the $44-million “Nathan Phillips Square Revitalization†wasted money. Clearly, given the destruction that has already been inflicted on the place, it is far too late to stop the project now. Mr. Ford has acknowledged that, and when I asked his incoming chief of staff, Nick Kouvalis, about it on Friday, he said sensibly, “There is nothing that we can do at this point.â€
I asked city officials about an assertion, on the City of Toronto website, that the new skate pavilion would open for the Calvacade of Lights and official opening of the skating season on the square, on Nov. 26. They replied that the pavilion now won’t be ready until February, and then revised the website to reflect this delay.
A city spokesman, Alex Mozo, explained the problem as follows in an email: “This change in the schedule comes as a result of unforeseen site conditions that were discovered during the demolition of the old building and time lost during the G20 Summit, which required time for demobilization/re-mobilization, before and after the Summit.â€
(That last bit, about the G20, is a bit of a dog-ate-my-homework line, given that the square is well outside the security perimeter of the summit).
Like Mr. Ford, I have to wonder what was wrong with the skate house to begin with. Bruce Bowes, Toronto’s chief corporate officer, says, “It was just a mess — a block building that didn’t have many uses. We’re making the square upbeat, modern and functional.â€
He adds that the builders stopped the permitting process to redesign the pavilion. “We are adding two components: bike storage expansion, a few million being paid out of the transportation budget, and a new stair redesign [down to the underground parking].â€
The pipes that move coolant under the rink, meanwhile, are leaking. “We will replace the coolant lines that are compromised,†in time for this year’s skating and then, “in 2011 or early 2012 we will be doing the chiller system as well,†he adds.
I cannot help wonder why workers waited until deep in the fall to smash up the cement bed of the rink, and now say they can fix it up and have it operating in 18 days.
When Rob Ford takes office on Dec. 1, the square will still be a sorry mess.
The city insists that the rink will be open; visitors will rent skates and get changed in a series of temporary trailers on the site.
As a skater and as a citizen, I do want to believe that they can get the rink open, at the very least.
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