hawc
Senior Member
SURPRISE! Our Dear Leader is going to make OP even better by making it even bigger!!
Is "Dear Leader" Chow or Ford?
SURPRISE! Our Dear Leader is going to make OP even better by making it even bigger!!
I'll give DSC-san bonus marks for presenting it better though! <3Already posted this morning along with discussion afterwards
I attended the walk around OP last spring & they said there is supposed to be a substantially large portion of the new Science Centre built on the mainland where there's currently a parking lot.So.... is everything other than the pods and Cinesphere getting demolished? Will all those trees be cut too?
The pods will become the new Science Centre and the rest is going to be a spa?
It is mainly a water park with a spa component on the smaller upper levels. They are suggesting a preliminary entrance fee of $40/adult with cheaper rates for kids & families (same as the price to enter the water park in Niagara Falls and around the same as CN Tower or Wonderland). I assume some of those against the project are calling it "an expensive spa for the elite" because they feel it'll turn public opinion against it and therefore they'll achieve their aim of shutting it down.Looks pretty cool. So is it a water park for everyone? Or an upscale spa for the rich? If it's a year round water park for kids and everyone I think that's a pretty good reimagining of what's there now. But I thought everyone is calling it a spa? What's the protest over? I haven't been following this one closely.
Agreed! One update - the parking is now moving over to the Exhibition grounds, so even that big drawback has been removed.I have a feeling I might be in the minority, but I really do not mind these plans at all. The only thing that I find disappointing is the massive parking garage. The science centre move is a bit silly but I don't find it to be egregious. I would have rather seen IO try to attract a different museum or cultural space in its place.
Toronto's public space currently has too much focus on just providing "nature" in the city. There is already a lot of this. What this city really sucks at is programming and creating spaces with attractions people actually want to visit rather than another grass lawn with trees and benches. If that means blurring the lines between private and public space, so be it.
Jean Drapeau in Montreal has large portions of privatized space and that has not stopped it from being a very pleasant place to visit. If these plans are executed as advertised I anticipate this will be an even more lively and exciting place to be than Jean Drapeau, and more akin to Marina Bay Sands in Singapore or the West Kowloon Cultural District in HK.
Really my only issue is the fact we're getting a much smaller science center - with that said, a lot of the science center was open space / greenery / outdoor sections - so purely from an exhibit space perspective it's not clear to me how much different it really is ? Side note, I loved the science center growing up, I suspect many did, and I thought they did a decent job keeping it up to date until maybe ~ 2010 (it really was one of the premier North American science centers in the 1990s+) I recall I believe the telus expansion - but since then ... with the lack of investment, I find it's turned into a glorified daycare - as the exhibits are so old, in bad shape, and out of date (from a science and technology perspective).
Another thought - so the science center of course had the imax theater - is cinesphere going to be used in such a capacity as that would be great ? Do you know what would have been a dream come true, no clue if this is really feasible, but turn the cinesphere into a world class planetarium (that can still show movies as well).
I do not think the "spa" is necessarily a bad fit, assuming there is enough variety (i.e. for kids and adults) the fact that it and the science center are all year venus that's a huge win for the area.
Yeah seems like if it was FAMILY WATER PARK rather than SPA FOR THE RICH you'd have no issues at all.
Also, speaking as a dad with two young kids under 5, you need parking for families. It's an inconvenient truth. You're not going to attract young families without parking. Especially in that area. If it were downtown core maybe.