Eb Zeidler Architect, Michael Hough Landscape Architect, Eric McMillan Architect, Children’s Village

National Trust for Canada Top 10 Endangered Places, 2012

National Trust for Canada Prix du XXe siècle, 2017

January 2018: The Provincial government deletes the Ontario Place Statement of Cultural Heritage Value and replaces it with Creating a new world-class destination at the Ontario Place site. The new guidelines dictate that the site’s land will not be sold but will be available for long-term lease. Other restrictions include no residential development and at least 7.5 acres of the site´s total 155 acres to be maintained as park land. Proposals may incorporate all or part of Trillium Park (designed by LANDinc, completed 2017, winner Architizer A+ Award in Public Landscape Design 2018) provided an equal area of park is created elsewhere on the site. Otherwise land, water, islands, pods, Cinesphere are all available for redevelopment. The markedly non-Zeidler Budweiser Stage that replaced the much-loved Forum in 1995 is the only structure not available for re-development. Negative reaction to the Provincial Government’s “new vision”: Torrential.

May 8, 2019: Ontario Place: Building on Our Legacy hosted by ACO Toronto and the Toronto Society of Architects, Carolyn King former elected Chief of the Mississaugas of the Credit insists that access to Lake Ontario must be guaranteed to all Ontarians - as it is at Trillium Park that was built in consultation with First Nations. Planner Ken Greenberg re-iterates the importance of Ontario place as a waterfront park that must not be diminished in any way. Construction of a version of Kingston’s Gord Edgar Downie Pier where Toronto’s lake water is famously clean is a well-received suggestion.

Michael McClelland of ERA Architects recalls Harbour City designed for a population of 60,000 by Eb Zeidler in 1970. Much admired by Jane Jacobs it would have been built on reclaimed land and artificial islands between Ontario Place and Hanlan’s Point. McClelland insists that revitalization of Ontario Place cannot happen without revitalization of Exhibition Place. Nor can there be revitalization without improved access between the two Places and the City with improved transit to both - as recognized by Exhibition Place management in its evolving proposals for Next Place – Exhibition Place.

Improved transit? Ontario Line that will connect Ontario Place/Exhibition Place through downtown with Thorncliffe Park, Flemingdon Park and the Ontario Science Centre is scheduled to open in 2030.

Architect George Baird proposes a request for proposals for reuse of the pods that might include a museum of the city or of Toronto’s First Nations or live-work spaces that would support themselves as well as other businesses and entertainments year-round. Otherwise, how justify the estimated $8.3b cost of the Ontario Line?

ACO and TSA sponsors a video that has more than 60,000 hits in social media. There are articles in the press and guided walks, ACO past Chair Leslie Thompson meets with then Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport Michael Tibollo to request that any proposed Ontario Place plans conserve the features recognized in the now deleted Statement of Cultural Heritage Value.

November 2019: Chair of ACO Ontario Place Sub-Committee, Bill Greaves successfully promotes inclusion of Ontario Place on the World Monuments Fund 2020 Watch List. Dec 10, 2019: Ontario Association of Architects, Ontario Architecture Day: Chris Glover MPP (NDP Fort York-Spadina) nominates Ontario Place as his favourite building in his riding. It is then selected by OAA as one of its eight QPP Picks 2019.

ACO applies to the Getty Foundation's Keeping it Modern program for $200,000 US to support development of a Conservation Management Plan for Ontario Place. The application is shortlisted.

October 2020-January 2021: as part of its collaboration with The Future of Ontario Place Project, ACO NextGen makes Ontario Place the focus of its ninth annual Design Charrette. In combination with a Call for Counterproposals, the charrette will, for the first time in its history be a country-wide, virtual event, spanning months rather than a single day.

December 17, 2020: BREAKTHROUGH! Provincial Government declares that redeveloping Ontario Place is “central to the recovery of heritage, culture, recreation and tourism for all Ontarians post pandemic — both as a tourism destination but also as a display of our strong cultural identity in Ontario.” Cinesphere, pods, Trillium Park and the William G. Davis Trail will remain.

The Future of Ontario Place Project

See Image #3: Ontario Place as it will look if proposals by Therme Group, Live Nation and Eco Reo proceed.

Cinesphere and pods that were originally available for demolition, with Trillium Park, will remain. (Future use of pods to be determined. Science related activities in collaboration with the Ontario Science Centre proposed.)

William G. Davis Trail will be extended around the perimeter

July 30, 2021: Provincial Government identifies its Ontario Place Development Partners

May 27, 2023: notice from management of Ontario Place re Site Access

To ensure public safety and in keeping with the redevelopment schedule, the following portions of the site have been closed:

• Ontario Place marina
• West Island for large public events
• Path through the marina that connects the West Island to Trillium Park

At this time, Trillium Park, a portion of East Commons, Budweiser Stage, and a portion of the parking lots will remain open, in addition to the West Island for passive pedestrian use. The West Island can be accessed through the bridge at the west entrance.

Beginning in 2024, the majority of the site will be closed to allow for active construction, with the exception of Budweiser Stage and a portion of the parking lots, as well as Trillium Park, as long as it remains safe to do so. Additional closures may be announced as more information becomes available.

ACO continues to collaborate with Ontario Place for All in its determination that "Ontario Place must remain a vibrant, publicly accessible, waterfront park. Considering:

Ontario Place is currently [was until closed] a free, open and accessible waterfront park that is [was] used by more than a million people every year. It is also an internationally recognized architectural treasure. And yet this amazing asset is at risk RIGHT NOW.

The Province of Ontario plans to turn close to half of the park land over to an Austrian spa franchise which will cut down over 800 trees and level the internationally recognized landscape to accommodate its enormous 13 storey (half the size of Rogers Centre) pay-to-play glass spa facility.

Unbelievably the Province has also committed the Ontario taxpayer to provide is a huge subsidy, upwards of $650 million, to help out this commercial development. Write a letter and stand up for an Ontario Place for All!”

August 2023: Therme Canada re-design shrinks its Ontario Place spa project

• The size of the Therme building has been reduced by 25 per cent. Instead of a single large building, it's now composed of a campus of connected buildings.
• Some 1.6 hectares of rooftop parkland and trails have been added on top of the buildings, in addition to the 4.8 hectares of public parkland, including a new beach, boardwalk and cycling trails included in the previous design.
• The bridge connecting the mainland to the West Island over Lakeshore Boulevard West and through a redesigned entry pavilion will include publicly accessible greenspace.
• The East Headland will have a larger public gathering space and "better protection from the elements."
• Public pathways have been widened and more space for food concessions added.
• Input from the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation has informed many of the new features, including the bridge and rooftop pathways that will "recreate the path of the Credit River."

Norm Di Pasquale, co-chair of Ontario Place for All: the design changes don't fix "fundamental flaws" with the project: "We're still talking about erasing every single tree at West Island and everything that's there right now, we're still looking at $650 million in taxpayer money and a 95-year lease of which we cannot see any of the details."

Coun. Ausma Malik (Spadina—Fort York): "Hundreds of millions of dollars of public funds spent by the province to subsidize site preparations for a private spa, water park, and parking structure for thousands of cars, could be put to much better use".

November 20, 2023: landscape architect Walter Kehm of LANDinc, commissioned to design landscaping of the (to be shrunk) public realm of Ontario Place because he felt he had become “persona non grata” after advocating for the hundreds of trees and decades-old wildlife habitat being threatened by the project. I remember when Michael Hough (original landscape architect of Ontario Place) was planting those trees. To think they could be clear-cut doesn’t sit in my stomach very well.”

November 20, 2023: Oversight of the Gardiner and the Don Valley Parkway is being uploaded to the provincial government. As part of the deal, the city will allow the province to take over responsibility for the entirety of Ontario Place.

October 3, 2024: Walter Kehm, architect of Tommy Thompson Park and Trillium Park resigns his commission to design the public realm in Ontario Place.

October 29, 2024: 800 trees felled on the West Island.