Thread by @g_meslin

1) When @fordnation proposes an idea for Toronto’s waterfront, you can be he will use the phrase ‘world-class’. No surprise, it’s one of the first phrases you find at the top of the government page on the #OntarioPlace redevelopment.
 
Let’s talk about ‘world-class’.

2) I hope we can begin with the shared premise that Ontario Place should be something special. That it is uniquely endowed with legacy, location, landscape, built heritage, and public ownership. It should be a jewel on the waterfront. A calling card for Toronto.

3) And just to emphasize the context, we are talking about a waterfront site, near dense and rapidly growing communities, at the heart of a city of almost 3 million people, and a region of 7 million.

4) These are the three (world-class) partners that were selected to be part of the redevelopment, on a conceptual map showing the parts of Ontario Place on which their respective activities, and related facilities, are to be focused.

5) So here is the question: given the context, is this a world class proposal?
 
I’d like to look at the ‘health and wellness’ facility proposed by Therme group, that would occupy much of the West Island.

6) The Therme Group example is interesting, because they have a track record.
 
Their website lists six wellbeing resorts – four operating & two in development. Locations are in Germany, Romania, and the UK.
 
We’re talking world class – how does this play elsewhere in the world?

7) Our first example is Sinsheim, Germany. A town of about 35,000 people, located around 50km north of Stuttgart, and 90km south of Frankfurt.

8) The Therme facility here opened in 2012.

The open roof.
The undulating shoreline.
The indoor/outdoor pools.
The walkway across the lake.

9) The giant parking lot, and the even larger lots of the adjacent stadium…

10) The setting, amidst farmland to the south, and what appears to be a light industrial area to the north…
 
World-class context, to be sure.

11) Let’s move on to Euskirchen, Germany.  A town of near 60,000 people, located about 20km southwest of Bonn, and 30km south of Cologne.

12) There it is. Therme Euskirchen. Opened 2015. Retractable Roof. Curving glass wall. Pond and pools.

11 ‘sauna worlds’.
500 palm trees.
Pools at 33 degree Celsius.
6,500 sq. m. ‘natural lake’.

13) Zoom out a bit, and you also see a backdrop of open fields, the ample space for parking, and the back-of-house/service side of the complex that never makes it into the renders.

14) And if you zoom all the way out, and pin Therme Euskirchen on the map, you see that its location is at the edge of town, outside of the ring road, on the rural fringe.

We’re offering Ontario Place.

15) But those were both smaller towns. Maybe in Bucharest, a city of 1.8 million, the Therme resort will be afforded a location more comparable to Ontario Place.

16) Here we are – Therme Bucharest, opened in 2016.
 
Larger campus than the first two facilities. Beaches. Waterslides. More pools and ponds. Other buildings in the complex.

17) But again, surrounded by parking and empty fields….

18) …located just north of the international airport…

19) …about 20 km from the city centre.

We’re offering Ontario Place.

20) Maybe, if we want better comparables, we should be looking at the newest projects that are currently in development. Lets look at Manchester, opening in 2023.
 
The rendering looks…..familiar.

21) And the context for the Manchester resort?
 
Trafford City, a large-format retail and entertainment district just west of the industrial Trafford Park area. The project site is next to shopping malls, a Costco, a BMW/Mini car dealership, Legoland, and a Holiday Inn Express.

22) Finally, the planned wellbeing resort in Bad Vilbel, a small resort town about 10 km north of Frankfurt.
 
Once again, I feel like I’ve seen this rendering before…

23) This will be the site of the great, glassy thing….

24) …and this is where it will sit in relation to Frankfurt. (I should acknowledge that, in this instance, Bad Vilbel is a historic spa town.)

25) Three projects in development.
 
Toronto / Manchester / Bad Vilbel
 
I don’t know what ‘world-class’ means, but it sure isn’t ‘unique’ or ‘of a place’.

26) ...and we’re offering Ontario Place.

27) Therme Group may build ‘world-class’ indoor spa resorts, but it’s also clear that no other city would put that use on a site like Ontario Place. It doesn’t suit the context. It belongs among peripheral theme parks and large format commercial uses. Also, on private land.

28) So if this goes through, thank @fordnation for putting a copy-and-paste collection of waterslides and pools, the same as can be found on the rural fringe of a number of mid-size European cities, on a prime location on Toronto’s waterfront.
 
World class? You be the judge.

29) Final thought: what Ontario Place should be, in a city starved for connection to the lake and islands, in a city ready to consider things like a rail deck park, is a public park. A great public park on the lake. That’s world-class.

30) Very final thought: Trillium Park cost $30 million. I don’t know what a similar calibre of park for the rest of Ontario Place would cost, but it would undoubtedly be far, far less than, for example, the extra $1.8B that will be spent to bury Eglinton West.

31) ...the point isn’t that resources should be moved between two very different buckets; it’s that the resources exist, when there is political will to tap them.

32) ...and starving the park of resources, while letting it decay, is a strategy intended to manufacture public resignation, and acceptance of something - anything - being done, even if it’s carving up a public jewel to for private interests. We could and should have better.