Three weeks after closing the Ontario Science Centre, the Ford government released a series of reports to justify the decision.
On Thursday, Infrastructure Ontario sent journalists a 2016 business case on the science centre’s relocation, a third-party engineering firm’s peer-review of the roof analysis that pre-empted the centre’s closure, and a collection of documents explaining its move.
Officials then held a virtual briefing to make their case for shutting down the 55-year-old facility, which elicited significant public backlash.
The Ford government is relocating the science centre to a facility that’ll be newly built at Ontario Place as part of its redevelopment of the provincially controlled Toronto waterfront site, which it announced last April.
On June 21 of this year, the government closed the science centre’s existing Don Mills facility. Days earlier, it received an engineering consultancy firm’s report on issues with the science centre’s outdated reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) roof panels.
“The building did not close exclusively because of the RAAC issue,” Infrastructure Ontario CEO Michael Lindsay said on Thursday. "It closed because of a multiplicity of issues that were deeply impacting the operations of the Ontario Science Centre — heating, cooling, access to buildings, and now, yes, a very real health and safety concern associated with the roof.”
RAAC products were commonly used in Ontario buildings up until the early 1970s. Most of the roof of the existing science centre in Toronto’s Don Mills area, built in the late 1960s, is made of RAAC panels.
Engineering consultancy firm Rimkus found that up to six per cent of the science centre’s RAAC roof panels were at risk of collapsing if snow accumulated over the winter, as it wrote in a report it provided the government last month. Replacing the highest risk panels could cost a few million dollars, and be done this year, according to Rimkus’ report.
RAAC panel roofs are now typically recommended to be replaced after 30 years. Replacing the entirety of the science centre’s roof could take a decade in total, Rimkus’ report said.
When it shared Rimkus’ report in mid-June, Infrastructure Ontario also estimated this work would cost $22 to $40 million, and could require the centre’s closure for upwards of two years.
Instead of funding repairs or upgrades to the science centre’s roof, the government opted to close it immediately before accepting proposals for a temporary location the week after.
On top of the public backlash since June 21, multiple millionaires have said they’d help fund the roof repairs, while Moriyama Teshima Architects — founded by the building’s original designer — has said it would provide “pro-bono” services to keep it open.
On Thursday, Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma, Infrastructure Ontario’s CEO and other officials seemed to shut the door on hopes that it could remain open.
Surma said she understands “the closure has been very difficult for many,” but that “I support” the decision to shut down the existing facility’s operations.
Officials briefed journalists on a laundry list of other issues that they said would need to be addressed to stay open. Heating, cooling and electrical system upgrades, and repairs to its pedestrian bridge, would all be needed, they said.
“If you cannot heat a building during the winter months, you cannot maintain your sprinkler and life safety systems.” Jane Domenico, Infrastructure Ontario’s president of asset management and modernization, said. “So this means no one would be able to attend the site, except under very, very strict protocols.”
‘$500 million’
A day earlier, Premier Doug Ford said fixing the current science centre, and keeping it open, “would cost minimum — minimum — close to $500 million.”
Ford’s suggestion was roughly what capital repairs of the existing facility are estimated to cost over the next 50 years, according to information shared by the government on Thursday and previously.
A 2022 building condition assessment, which Infrastructure Ontario’s presentation cited, estimated “a minimum capital investment of $478 million” would be needed to maintain the current facility over the next 50 years. This spending would pay for structural repairs, escalator and elevator maintenance, electrical and cooling and heating upgrades, and more — but not include repairs to the RAAC roofing.
It would cost $16 million to repair the key pedestrian bridge, according to one estimate the government cited in its 2022 business case on relocating the science centre.
However, immediate necessarily repairs — which would require the current centre’s temporary closure — allowing it “to stay open” would cost between around $90 to $110 million, another document Infrastructure Ontario shared said.
“Even if we injected hundreds of millions of dollars, we cannot guarantee that it would be operational for another 50 years,” Surma said of the government’s preference toward finding the centre a temporary home until the future facility at Ontario Place opens. “And, it would have to be closed for a significant period of time — 10 to 15 years — just to conduct the work alone.”
In the meantime, Surma said her “priority is to decommission the building safely, work on an interim location for science centre programming, and then, of course, focus our energies on a new science centre (at Ontario Place).”
The government began accepting bids from potential temporary hosts of the science centre two weeks ago. It hopes to open the temporary site by Jan. 1, 2026. The government has not said how much temporarily relocating the science centre will cost.
It’s targeting a 50,000- to 100,000-square-foot temporary facility, which is significantly smaller than the 568,000-square-foot building that just closed and the planned 275,000-square-foot building at Ontario Place.
Because the temporary site won’t be big enough to house all the exhibits, the government is also planning to secure a warehouse-style building to store overflow.
On Thursday, the government said it would like the warehousing facility to also serve as a fabrication site for the new science centre, where employees would make exhibits from scratch. The old science centre had an in-house fabrication facility and the new one won’t be big enough to have one on-site.
The province’s 2022 business case estimated “the full decommissioning cost” of the current science centre would be $21 million, “depending on the outcome from city negotiations.”
The province owns the existing building, but the land is jointly owned by the City of Toronto and the Toronto Region Conservation Authority. The province is in the midst of a 99-year lease from the city.
Surma wouldn’t say on Thursday what the province plans to do with the building. Ford and Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow agreed late last year to explore having “science-based programming” there.
“Anything they decided to do — outside of building another science centre — we’ll be there to support (the city),” Ford said on Wednesday.
Surma said she’s had “preliminary discussions” with Chow and that the building’s future is “top of the agenda” for their next meeting.
Toronto city council recently passed a motion to have staff explore the city potentially taking over the building.
