Before it secured a chunk of Ontario Place for the better part of the next century, Therme saw wider promise in the province.
As things turned out, its pitch to Premier Doug Ford’s government to take over a prime piece of the Toronto waterfront matched what the then-recently elected Progressive Conservatives were looking for.
In the second instalment of a three-part series on Therme Canada, The Trillium can reveal new details about how the company zeroed in on the provincially controlled site and how many of its pitch’s pieces fit into the PCs’ puzzle.
Setting up shop
When Robert Hanea — who formed Therme Group in Vienna, Austria in 2011 — brought the business to Canada, he simultaneously created two companies. Therme North Inc. and Therme Group Canada Inc. were incorporated on Feb. 23, 2017, legally planting roots in Toronto for what would look to become the company’s first significant operation outside Europe.
Therme Canada’s first year-and-a-half was busy but unsuccessful, at least compared to what was to come. It hired lobbyists, filed trademarks, and looked to find where in Ontario to first try to replicate the kind of thermal spa-based wellness facilities it had in the works across the Atlantic.
Around midsummer 2017, the Canadian companies Hanea had incorporated a few months earlier each registered one business name apiece: “Therme Niagara” and “Therme Toronto.”
Therme’s first lobbyist in Canada was in Toronto. “Therme Canada wishes to seek a site to build a wellness centre,” their initial filing on the municipality’s registry said.
Other lobbyists would follow suit at the provincial level the next year. In 2018, Therme-hired consultants filed registrations aimed at winning over provincial officials to support the company’s plan of “land redevelopment focusing on health and wellness, arts and culture, and environmental sustainability.”
Ontario Place was also on Therme Canada’s radar in its early months. It submitted a proposal to then-premier Kathleen Wynne’s government’s 2017-launched attempt to plan the redevelopment of the Toronto waterfront site’s west island, which it specifically hired consultants to help navigate as well.
Those plans were canned by Ford’s PCs right after the June 2018 election. His PC government announced the following January that it would soon embark on its own redevelopment plan.
Undeterred, Therme beefed up its roster of lobbyists, with 10 total registering or reaching out to provincial or City of Toronto officials by around the time the Ford government began accepting proposals.
According to former Toronto mayor John Tory’s recollection, Therme expressed interest in at least one other site in the city as well.
Reached by phone last week, Tory recalled having a meeting many years ago with foreign Therme representatives about the potential use of the western edge of Toronto’s Port Lands.
The Port Lands is about five kilometres east of Ontario Place. It’s controlled by the City of Toronto. Like Ontario Place, the Port Lands is a manmade addition to Toronto’s waterfront.
Tory said Toronto's port authority determined a Therme-style project at the Port Lands "would potentially cause issues with the continued operation of a port there," making that location not a good fit.
A critical summer
The Ford government launched its call for development for Ontario Place on May 28, 2019.
Certain parameters of the process would prove to be to Therme’s benefit: casinos and housing proposals wouldn’t be considered; nor would proposals requiring direct provincial funding; year-round attractions were preferred; and unrestricted public access didn’t need to be maintained.
Others weren’t — or didn’t seem to be — in Therme's favour at the time. The Ford government’s stated “preference” was toward proposals utilizing the entire site, and proponents were told to consider the site’s pre-existing parking “adequacy.”
The Ford government also declared a de facto Ontario Place lobbying ban for proponents over the course of its call for development process.
As a result, Therme’s lobbyists deregistered from contacting provincial officials about its proposal. They’d still remain active at the municipal level over the summer that followed “to inform the city of a proposal in regard to Ontario Place,” as their lobbyists’ filings said.
Collectively, Therme-hired lobbyists and Hanea were regularly in contact with key city officials from July through September 2019, including with the offices of the mayor, the councillor whose ward includes Ontario Place, and Exhibition Place’s CEO.
Exhibition Place is the mainland area that Ontario Place connects to. It's city-owned and managed.
Toronto streetcars and GO Transit trains stop at Exhibition Place. In spring 2019, the Ford government announced Exhibition Place is where the western terminal station of the 15.6-kilometre Ontario Line subway would be located.
The original deadline the Ford government set for Ontario Place redevelopment proposals was Sept. 3, 2019. A summary of a meeting of high-level provincial officials four weeks before suggests, by that point, one of the potential hindrances to Therme’s bid would no longer be a major issue for its chances.
On Aug. 6, 2019, some members of Ford’s cabinet and Cabinet Office officials were given a status update by staff from the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport and Infrastructure Ontario, according to an email a senior civil servant sent a few days later.
The tourism ministry had purview over Ontario Place at the time. It worked closely with the agency responsible for major infrastructure projects on the redevelopment plan.
Ministry and agency officials raised “options for matchmaking proposals that do not comprise of the entire (Ontario Place) site” at the Aug. 6, 2019 meeting. Tourism ministry officials were also instructed to “hold off on further meetings with the City of Toronto until after proposals are received.”
About two weeks later, Lisa MacLeod, who Ford made tourism minister two months earlier, had a “long conversation” about “next steps” in the Ontario Place redevelopment, according to an email the mayor’s deputy chief of staff sent a premier's office staffer.
Sometime in the next several days, Ford and MacLeod “settled” on a three-week extension to the Ontario Place redevelopment, with the premier signing off on this the night before proponents were notified of it on Aug. 28, 2019, according to emails between their staff.
“Therme did not request an extension,” Simon Bredin, Therme Canada’s spokesperson, said.
Two weeks before the new Sept. 24, 2019 submission deadline, MacLeod presented Ford with 10 “select team profiles” of prospective Ontario Place redevelopers, documents The Trillium obtained show.
This was “presented for informational purposes only to provide a briefing of known interest in the call for development at that time… (and) do not represent any ranking or evaluation whatsoever, as the call for development process was still ongoing,” a spokesperson for Ontario’s infrastructure minister said last November.
The companies MacLeod’s presentation highlighted included Therme, two other spa-builders, and Écorécréo Group — the other company the Ford government aimed to bring to Ontario Place in its original redevelopment concept.
“Just as many other proponents, Therme submitted its proposal to the government … on the deadline day,” Bredin said.
Thirty-four submissions were made to the province’s call for development. They included another spa-builder — meaning possibly four spa-based proposals, at least, were considered — according to records received in response to a freedom-of-information request.
Records indicate the Ford government was keen to possibly involve builders of world-renowned ferris wheels, theme parks, and mega-malls, or the owners of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, and considered proposals from Cirque du Soleil, along with about two-dozen others.
Ontario’s auditor general found the Ford government approved its “multi-partner approach” that included Therme and Écorécréo Group (and Live Nation, which had a pre-existing lease of Ontario Place’s Budweiser Stage) in May 2020. That July, Therme was told it was “a preferred proponent and invited to negotiate an agreement with the government of Ontario,” its spokesperson said.
In the end, the spa and waterpark Therme proposed fit the bill of what the Ford government was looking for. Its flashy appeal certainly aided it, several Conservative sources agreed. It’s able to offer that without direct government support thanks to its parent company’s deep pockets.
Its desire for additional publicly paid-for parking also didn't appear to be an impediment, after all, according to comments Infrastructure Ontario's CEO Michael Lindsay made a year ago. "Multiple bidders — in fact, a significant number of them — cited in response to that provision that's within the call for development that the existing parking allocation availability at a combination of Ontario Place and Exhibition Place would need to be enhanced in order to suit their business needs and models," Lindsay said in June 2023.
The government agreed to build new parking nearby as part of its lease with Therme. It plans to build about 2,000 new parking spaces, which the Ministry of Infrastructure estimated could cost around $307 million. Ford and current Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow reached an agreement last November stipulating they'd "establish an alternative parking solution at Exhibition Place."
'Cloaked in mist'
On July 30, 2021, Ford, MacLeod, Tory and others announced the original Ontario Place redevelopment plan at a news conference held at the site. During it, Tory thanked MacLeod and Ford for “engaging the city.”
“We have worked together to develop a process whereby we can sit together going forward, from this very important day, and with the people across the street at Exhibition Place, (to) try and do something that is going to be world-renowned and respected,” Tory said at the announcement.
In a phone call last week, Toronto’s ex-mayor said he’d be “very surprised” if he influenced the deadline extension. “I’m pretty certain — like 99 per cent, as much as you can be — I had nothing to do with any deadlines,” Tory said.
He warned his recollection of that timeframe was imperfect, but said the province kept its planning “cloaked in mist,” even to him.
“I was vaguely aware that Therme was originally, maybe, on the (final) list of five,” Tory said. “But after that, it became very opaque, and we didn’t really know until they announced it.”
Ford's office hadn't responded to questions The Trillium asked in an email last week about the call for development process before this story was published.
Lindsay, Infrastructure Ontario's CEO, said last year of how bidders' submissions were judged, "Amongst other things, (proposals) had to animate the island year-round, and every proposal that was going to prosper had to not require ongoing government subsidy."
"It was on that basis that we made recommendations to the government of Ontario that led to the short list of people who are the prospective tenants at Ontario Place," he added.
Toronto's former mayor also affirmed last week that he continues to support the project. “I think this actually is a much more popular concept with people than the kind of discussion that goes on in the media about it,” Tory said. “And I think that (Therme) finds this an attractive market.”
The final part of The Trillium's Therme Canada series will expand on just how attractive the country's market is to the company.
