The Auditor General’s Report, Part 2: The billion dollar question of parking
Information from the Auditor General's report points to the construction of a large 4-storey parkade at Exhibition Place to fulfill lease obligations to Ontario Place tenants Therme and Live Nation. One of two possible sites would involve demolishing the Better Living Centre.
This piece was amended on Sunday, December 8 to add in an additional scenario for the placement of the parking garage, and information about the “last mile” connection between the Ontario Line and Ontario Place.
In Part 1 of this series analyzing the Auditor General’s 2024 report on the Ontario Place Redevelopment, I broke down how the project has gone from costing the public $400 million to involving over $2.2 billion in taxpayer dollars.
Today’s post concerns one of the biggest ticket items in that cost: the proposal for new parking at Ontario Place. I have titled the post “the billion dollar question” as the estimated cost of providing the parking required in the Province’s leases with Therme and Live Nation ranges from over $280-million to over $1.3 billion dollars.
The signed lease with Therme requires that the Province will construct 1,600 parking spots for Therme within 650 metres from Therme’s entrance. The Auditor General’s report notes that the Province has also agreed to make 1,200 spots available to Live Nation, within 750 metres of its entrance. There is some overlap between the spots—several hundred of the Therme spots will be ceded to Live Nation on concert nights—but overall, the Province has agreed to build a 1,800 spot parkade.
Back in 2021, the plan was to create a five-storey underground parkade on the south side of Lakeshore Boulevard, up against Lake Ontario, with the relocated Ontario Science Centre on top of it. In fact, as the Auditor General noted last year, the relocation of the Ontario Science Centre itself was presented to key decision-makers as primarily to justify this site-wide parking solution.
We have now learned that Infrastructure Ontario’s total capital cost for a five-storey underground parkade, beneath the half-sized Science Centre, is over $1.3 billion. Value-engineering this to a four-storey parkade would still cost $975 million.
Infrastructure Ontario has, due to these high costs, turned to examining options for parking at Exhibition Place, across the street. The Rebuilding Ontario Place Act, passed as part of the New Deal for Toronto, gives the Province broad range to extract lands from the City that would enable the Ontario Place redevelopment, and parking arguably falls within this scope.
There are two large existing surface lots on the south side of Exhibition Place—one just south of BMO Field, and one southeast of BMO field. The southeast lot has been approved for redevelopment as a 7,000-seat e-sports stadium, developed by OverActive Media and designed by Populous, making it an unsuitable candidate for a new parking facility.
The parking lot directly south of BMO field is key to Exhibition Place’s marquis event, the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE)—it houses the entirety of the midway—as well as being part of the IndyCar Series (formerly the Molson Indy), during which it houses grandstands, general viewing areas, and vendors. It is also a vital staging and parking area for other conferences and events held at Exhibition Place. Therefore, any new parking on this site would need to be below-ground. Infrastructure has estimated the cost of a two-storey underground parkade here, providing some 2,125 spots, at over $800 million.
Infrastructure Ontario currently has two “recommended” options, which are less costly, to fulfill its parking obligations. The first is a four-storey above-ground parkade at Exhibition Place. Alternatively, they suggest a single parking level below the new Ontario Science Centre, paired with a three-level above-ground parkade at Exhibition Place. These options are priced, respectively, at over $280 million, and over $400 million.
While no site is specified in the documents, there are two possibilities. Neither is perfect. One is a parkade on the land adjacent to the current Exhibition GO stop (and future Ontario Line Exhibition stop), where the CNE currently houses its kid’s midway. This would take up a potentially prime spot for future development or expansion of the CNE. Moreover, while creating large park-and-ride facilities next to transit nodes may makes sense in the suburbs, it seems like an odd placement in this downtown location—particularly as the parkade would not serve transit riders, but almost exclusively visitors to Therme and Live Nation.
The other would entail the demolition of Better Living Centre, a modernist structure designed by Marani, Morris & Allan in 1962. This would be closer to Lakeshore Boulevard, and the elevation change of the site (which sits higher than the road) would potentially conceal some of the parkade’s height. However, it would remove a heritage building, and a place which currently serves as a homeless shelter in the winter.
The report also contains a line item of over $60 million for a “last mile” connection between the Ontario Line terminus and Ontario Place—presumably a connection that would also include a stop at the parkade, wherever it lands. A Metrolinx report, referenced in a consultant document about Exhibition Place, mentions options including a shuttle bus, AV shuttle (self-driving buses? a monorail?), and two possible routes for a gondola.
The Auditor General’s report does note that the Province would own the parking garage, and would therefore also collect revenues for it. Financially, the parking structure (exclusive of the last mile connection) would be expected to break even in 28-35 years. But, other investments—such as in healthcare, education, and affordable housing—also involve spending money now, and expecting net financial benefits in the future (such as from the quantifiable benefits of a healthier and more educated population, better able to be productive members of society). Does investing hundreds of millions in a parkade make sense?
It would be fair to also ask whether this substantial investment in parking is justified given the proximity of Ontario Place to the expected terminus of the Ontario Line—a major public transit node—and the existing traffic congestion in this part of downtown Toronto. In short, Toronto drivers already know that Lakeshore Boulevard is a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam for most of the day. How will things look if we encourage—and expect—an additional 1,800 people to drive to this area each day?
The Auditor General’s Report, Part 1: The cost of privatizing Ontario Place
The Auditor General’s Report, Part 5: The Future, Continued Privatization of Ontario Place