Canadian Press
Ontario Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma is defending the decision to abruptly close the Ontario Science Centre, saying it was done for health and safety reasons.
Surma said Monday she had every intention of keeping the science centre open in its east Toronto location until a new one the government is planning to build on the waterfront at Ontario Place opens in 2028.
“It’s terrible,” she said Monday at an unrelated appearance. “It’s horrible. It was a very difficult decision. I am saddened by it, just like anyone else.” But, she said, engineers who identified some roof panels at risk of collapse told government officials that the roof should be replaced in its entirety, which would take two to five years.
Infrastructure Ontario is issuing a request for proposals on Monday to try to find a temporary science centre location until the new one at Ontario Place opens. The science centre is also looking at providing mobile, virtual and pop-up offerings.
Surma said even though the engineers said the building was safe until Oct. 31, when risk of the weight of snow on the roof starts, the employees need time to decommission the building and move all of the exhibits out before then.
When it opened in 1969, the Ontario Science Centre was the world’s first interactive science centre, but years of limited capital investments have left the building with multiple deficiencies.
An engineering report the government recently received found that there are a number of roof panels “in a distressed, high-risk condition” that could fail under the weight of snow this winter. That type of roofing panel, prevalent on the science centre buildings, has been found to be failing in other jurisdictions, prompting Ontario officials to take a closer look, they said.
The engineering firm Rimkus Consulting Group said fully negating the risk would require replacing each of that type of roof panel at a cost of between $22 million and $40 million and that would take two or more years to complete with the facility closed.
Infrastructure Ontario said it will look for a temporary science centre location until the new one at a redeveloped Ontario Place opens. The Ontario Science Centre is abruptly closing at the end of the day Friday, after engineers found structural issues with the roof.
The news from provincial infrastructure officials comes amid plans from the government to move the science centre from its current home in east Toronto to a new location at Ontario Place on the city’s waterfront, but that isn’t slated to be open until 2028.
The building is still safe over the summer, the government said, with an “enhanced process for rainwater monitoring and roof facility management,” it is being closed now so staff can spend the summer vacating the building.
A business case released last year by the government found that the current building is facing $369 million in deferred and critical maintenance needs over the next 20 years. A building condition report found “multiple critical deficiencies” in roof, wall, mechanical, electrical and elevator systems, interior finishes, site features, and fire and life safety equipment.
A lack of government funding is a key cause of that, Ontario’s auditor general said in a report last year.
There have been 42 projects deemed “critical” since 2017 that haven’t been repaired, and of those projects, the science centre had asked for funding for seven of them at least three times in the past five years but was denied each time, the auditor wrote.
The business case said that moving the science centre instead of renovating the existing facility could save the government about $250 million over 50 years. A considerable amount of those savings come from the new planned facility coming in at about half the size of the current one, though officials say there will be more exhibit space.