The Ontario government has been adamant that building a new Science Centre at Ontario Place will be preferable to reinvesting in the Ontario Science Centre at its current site. But such an assessment does not hold up to scrutiny.
In past articles, I have examined how the cost of repairing the existing Ontario Science Centre is far less than the cost of building a new, half-sized science centre at Ontario Place. I?ve also looked at how a new science centre will not be ready until 2030-2034, depriving a full generation of Ontario kids and parents from a full science centre experience.
The current article takes a more granular look at the architectural details of a new science centre, based on currently available information, and what would be lost compared to reinvesting in the existing Ontario Science Centre. The Ontario Science Centre at Ontario Place would occupy the heritage Pods and Cinesphere, along with a new building on the mainland. It is shown here with the current planned Therme facility and the existing Budweiser Stage. (Live Nation, which operates the Budweiser Stage, is planning to double the capacity of this venue, rendering it a comparable size to the proposed Theme Building.) Scale-wise, the footprint of the Therme facility is comparable to the footprint of the SkyDome (now Roger’s Centre); the footprint of the mainland science pavilion is about the size of that baseball stadium’s infield.
An 18%-56% reduction in exhibition space
The government ...