It was an unseasonably mild winter day in Toronto, but that didn’t make the icy waters of Lake Ontario any more inviting. However, Sara Fruchtman, wearing a swimsuit and swimming cap, took a dip in the lake at Michael Hough Beach.
She wasn’t alone. Seven other people were also present, some gathered around an anemic bonfire. All were part of an informal swimming group that gathered year-round at Toronto’s only downtown beach.
But their frosty ritual ended a few weeks later after a steel mesh fence cut off access to a pedestrian bridge leading to the island where the beach is located. A sign indicated that it was closed. The island, known as West Island, is one of two islands that make up Ontario Place, which is home to a former amusement park and exhibition pavilions.
The province of Ontario, owner of Ontario Place, is handing over the West Island to an Austrian spa developer under a 95-year lease to build what it describes as a large “wellness oasis” with hot and cold baths as well as other “water relaxation facilities.”
The project has drawn widespread criticism from local politicians and park users in Canada’s largest city, where a small portion of the vast lake is easily accessible to the public from the heart of Toronto.
“I’m grieving,” Ms. Fruchtman said. “It feels like some decision-makers don’t see that people really benefit from what we have here and that it could be built on instead of overbuilding. I don’t know why you would privatize something like that.
Ontario Place opened in 1971 as the province’s response to Expo 67, the Montreal World’s Fair that became a major international success.
Five exhibition halls filled with exhibits and films about the province rose on stilts between the East and West Islands, as did a geodesic dome housing a then-new IMAX cinema, film technology developed in Canada.
Over time, Ontario Place has housed playgrounds, a water park, a marina, restaurants, a log walk and a concert amphitheater, all connected by a park designed by Michael Hough, the ‘one of Canada’s Most Famous Landscape Architects.
The New York Times, in an article shortly after its opening, stated that “At first it looks like a universal exhibition, but better. »
Although Ontario Place attracted crowds in its early years, low entry fees and low concession revenues made it a perpetual waste of money, and debates about what to do with it would do began well before its closure in 2010. The open space on the West Island became a park. (A concert hall on the other island is rented from Live Nation.)
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has long wanted to leave his mark on the city’s waterfront.
No one, even the spa’s critics, disputes the Ford government’s decision to use provincial money to restore and reopen the showrooms and the IMAX theater.
But there was little support when the government unveiled plans by Therme, a Vienna-based company, to build a commercial spa that would occupy most of the West Island and amount to nearly 150 feet.
Unlike Thermes spas in Europe, which are primarily aimed at adults, the proposal for Ontario Place would add an indoor family water park. (Another feature at some of its European outlets, nude bathing, will be skipped.) The company says entry for adults will start at around $40 Canadian, or about $30.
The island’s approximately 840 trees will be cut down and the West Island’s outdoor public space will be largely limited to green spaces on the spa’s roof and a wide path around the spa.
The beach will be removed, but the spa developer said he plans to build a larger replacement beach. But rather than facing Lake Ontario, his plan features the new beach oriented toward the shore, creating a view dominated by a concrete breakwater and a busy six-lane boulevard.
The City of Toronto opposed the spa proposal, with officials citing the size, scale and location. They also said it would overwhelm existing pavilions, thereby diminishing the official designation of local landmarks as historically significant.
The 2,100-space underground parking lot the province plans to build in the West Island as part of the project runs counter to Toronto’s efforts to prioritize public transit use , including a new subway line that will begin across from Ontario Place,” city officials said.
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow said she used to take her grandchildren to the West Island. “There’s not enough space like that on the water,” she said. “It’s really well used at any time of year.”
Mr. Ford responded to Toronto’s criticism by passing provincial legislation removing the city’s authority over the spa project and expropriating some Toronto-owned land for the garage.
Mr. Ford’s office referred questions about the proposal to Ontario Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma, who said the spa would make the site “a place that people really enjoy — and it ‘is not what it is today.’
The spa, she added, would make Ontario Place a more welcoming destination in winter.
“Canada is a very cold place most of the year,” she said, “and it’s very important to have indoor facilities that families can enjoy. »
Robert Hanea, president and CEO of Therme, rejected criticism that the spa would transform what was previously a public space into a private playground that fewer people would use.
“We are a company that brings a phenomenal wellness infrastructure to Toronto,” he said in an interview. “An infrastructure that will be accessible to millions of people and their families — people who don’t have a cottage, people who can’t fly south in the winter. »
“I don’t think,” he added, “that public spaces are just parks.”
The amount the developer will pay Ontario for the lease has not been made public.
The backlash against the project has had some effect. Therme has reduced the maximum height of the spa and will use a landfill to increase the size of the West Island to provide more public space.
A group of citizens went to court to challenge, among other things, the lack of an environmental assessment of the project. The province responded by asking the court to dismiss the case because it argues the law Mr. Ford pushed through eliminates the need for an environmental review.
“This is an urban park, a waterfront park, that serves multiple purposes,” said Ken Greenberg, a Toronto city planner and member of a group that filed the legal challenge .
“It’s about balance,” he added, “and what they’re proposing just erases that balance and puts it behind a paywall that many, many people won’t be able to afford. allow.”
