In spring 2023, the Ontario Government announced that it was planning to move the Ontario Science Centre to a significantly smaller facility at Ontario Place. That planned move came under criticism from many quarters, including from the province’s Auditor General. But instead of backing down, the province doubled down. Shockingly to all, they decided to close the existing Science Centre earlier this summer, on the flimsy, now-debunked premise that an engineer’s roof report required the closure.
The Province’s original relocation plan, for all of its faults, ensured continuous access to a science educational facility in the region by proposing to reduce the existing science centre location to a smaller footprint in the transition period before a new science centre would be open. The cost to do so was estimated at $32 million.
The decision to suddenly close the Science Centre at the beginning of this summer was an unexpected change of course. A temporary science centre, which is 1/10th of the size of the current facility, will not open until 2026. A new Science Centre will not open at Ontario Place until 2030 to 2034.
A single page of the government’s business case for the relocation lays out, in broad strokes, what is happening right now—and the risks that the government is knowingly accepting by choosing this course of action.
The slide, labelled “Option 1A: Decant to Alternate Space,” is the sole image included in the business case’s “Appendix Q: Interim Operating Expenses,” although its label (Option 1A) indicates that it was one of several options considered by the Province (there was presumably also an Option 1B and Option 2, if not more options on the table).
The blue “policy objective” box at the top left outlines why the Province might choose to pursue the option to Decant to an Alternate Space. Pros and cons are listed at the top of the slide, followed by a grid that lays out the cost to government. At the top right, red and orange flags summarize the risk to the existing building, and the risk to the OSC’s programs.
I will take us through these elements one at a time.
Let’s start with the “Policy objective” and “Pros,” which can be read together. The idea of an interim OSC at an alternate space, we read in both places, is to “maintain an in-person OSC service offering.” Another pro is that the strategy, had it been chosen from the outset, “Provides sufficient time to either identify/lease space and complete fit-up.” But as we have seen, because of the sudden closure this summer, the possibility of a continuous, in-person OSC service offering has certainly not been assured. According to the current schedule—which even Infrastructure Ontario has admitted is ambitious—a temporary OSC in an alternate space will not be ready until 2026, creating a gap of at least 18 months from the facility’s closure.
The temporary OSC strategy also “expediates decant from existing site to reduce risk.” It is not clear from the present document what kind of “risk” this is referring to, but in the business case, there is a discussion that negotiating an early return of the OSC lands to the City of Toronto, from which the lands are leased, could help limit “any trailing obligations,” including but not limited to “decommissioning costs (approximately $21 million) and costs related to returning the building in a state of good repair (up to $369 million).” One might reasonably infer that an expedited decant is intended to limit the costs that the Province may owe to the City upon leaving the Don Mills site.
The other “Pros” are straight-up troubling. Perhaps if your job is as a bean-counter, you could see it as a positive that this strategy “allows sufficient time for staffing reductions resulting in surplussing”—but in most views, the loss of jobs in science education would seem to be an overall negative, both for the job holders and for Ontarians at large. Likewise, the idea of “scaling back programming/operating costs”—to the tune of $13-14 million per year—implies a severe reduction in science-based programming. If this “savings” is applied directly to staff salaries and wages (the largest line item in the Science Centre’s business plan), it suggests that more than half of the Science Centre’s staff will be laid off this fall. If the “savings” are applied equally across all Science Centre expenses, it would still mean that a full 1/3 of staff will be laid off imminently.
The last “Pro”—the idea that “interim operations could be leveraged as a communications and marketing opportunity to build anticipation for a new facility”—seems simply shameful. This essentially argues for depriving families and kids of a full science centre to win their gratitude when something permanent—anything permanent—eventually opens.
Let’s now look at the “Cons” and the two risk flags together. To start us off, there’s the fact that “a reduction in programming or closure would likely result in negative stakeholder and public reaction.” This couldn’t be more true—in the past six weeks since the Science Centre closed, 83,000 people from across the Province have signed a petition to reopen it, millions of dollars have been pledged by philanthropists to repair it, and hours of discussion in Toronto’s City Hall have taken place concerning how the City can work with the Province to restore it.
Then, there’s the idea that the “strategy accepts operational, health & safety risks by the program.” If you refuse to invest in maintenance projects flagged as ‘critical’ for a building, over time, there is a greater chance that it may start to pose real risks. As it turns out, it’s been clear that the roof repairs and other critical issues that the government has recently pointed to can be addressed with staged repairs that will have little impact to the visitor experience. The overall safety of the building, at least for the present, is being tacitly acknowledged by the fact that it housed a wedding the day after it closed, and hundreds of staff are still reporting to work—let alone the fact that the roof handily withstood a historic rainfall event in mid-July.
The other item listed in “Con” is that the “occupancy of existing site must terminate by March 31, 2025.” It’s not clear why this date is so specific, but I would welcome insight on this. It may be about simply making the numbers in the chart add up, or avoiding triggering the need for greater maintenance expenses that may be expected in that year—or it may be in some way linked to a construction funding deadline for the existing OSC site or new Science Centre at Ontario Place.
Turning to the two flags at the top right of the page, the strategy of a temporary space entails “High Building Risk.” This refers to the physical buildings at Don Mills Road, which, in this scenario, are “decommissioned” in 2026-27 at a cost of $20-24 million—a price tag that aligns with the Province’s estimates for demolishing the buildings entirely.
The temporary location also carries a “Medium Program Risk.” Severe reductions in staff, operations, and programming will fundamentally undermine the core functions of the OSC, resulting in losses to science education for the OSC’s million annual visitors, as well as long-term losses in institutional knowledge and know-how. I’m not sure what a “High Program Risk” would look like, and how it could be worse than this: maybe the “High Risk” flag was reserved for an option where the interim Science Centre consisted only of virtual offerings and pop-ups.
How does this pan out in terms of the financials? In this chart, it’s estimated that the cost of fitting out and operating a temporary OSC on a different site until 2028 would be $34.3 to $58.3 million.
This range is close to my estimate for a temporary OSC, which I figured pencils out at between $32 to $90 million. My higher estimate is premised on a slightly higher range of costs for fit-out, and the fact that the government is seeking a temporary space for a longer period of time—with a lease going until 2030, with the possibility of yearly extensions until 2034. (As I have written, the only plausible explanation for this long lease is that the Province does not expect the OSC at Ontario Place to be open until 2030-2034—not 2028, as they have been telling the public. This also correlates with industry experience that, given where the project is currently at in the P3 public-private-partnership process, the building will take approximately 6 to 10 years to be completed.)
Disturbingly, the government’s estimates on this chart suggest that the costs of operating a temporary Science Centre for a longer period of time would remain stable, since the savings from reduced operations/programming (having much less science education and a much reduced staff) would offset the leasing costs and revenue loss (presumably from reduced ticket and membership sales, the removal of event rental income, and the suspension of exhibit construction and sales).
If one extends the timeline to 2030-2034, and insists on maintaining operational funding and staffing at current levels, the cost of a temporary Science Centre skyrockets. Using these revised assumptions and the government’s numbers, the added costs of operating a temporary Science Centre until a new Science Centre opens at Ontario Place tallies up to $91.3 million – $178.3 million.
This amount would go a long way towards addressing comprehensive repairs to the Science Centre, which will not be the half-billion the government has stated, but much less. Infrastructure Ontario’s consultants estimated the cost of comprehensive repairs and upgrades to be $228 million over a 20 year period. This figure includes $32 million towards a full roof replacement, $11 million towards the pedestrian bridge, $33 million towards HVAC, and $25 million towards interior finishes. This also includes a generous 185% markup factor for consultants and to account for unexpected costs and complexity.
Fortunately, a closure can be reversed. The Science Centre was closed just weeks ago, and could be reopened just as quickly—certainly more quickly than building out a new temporary Science Centre at another yet-to-be-determined site. Reinvesting in the Science Centre means that if and when the Province decides to decamp to a new location, the building will be in good repair for its next owner, the City of Toronto, to either continue operating with science-based programming as the Province agreed to discuss with the City, or to adaptively reuse to another purpose to serve the rapidly growing population of the area and of the region.
Reversing the closure and reinvesting in the Ontario Science Centre means protecting the building, the staff, and science education. We must insist that the Province reverses its decision, and reopens the Science Centre.
Related:
As Province edges towards demolition of Science Centre, documents point to a manufactured crisis
Cost of Ontario Science Centre temporary location exceeds cost of roof repairs
Ontario Science Centre doesn’t require full closure: A close reading of the engineers’ report
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