Doug Ford government unveils 95-year lease for waterfront spa at Ontario Place in Toronto

The Ontario government has unveiled its 95-year lease with Therme Canada to build a waterpark and spa at the province’s Ontario Place site on Toronto’s waterfront, but the document reveals little about how many hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are being spent preparing the site and building a promised parking garage.

The province’s Infrastructure Ontario agency released the text of its long-term lease with the Canadian arm of Vienna-based Therme on Thursday, confirming that the prime waterfront site is being leased to the company for 75 years with an option for a 20-year extension. Infrastructure Ontario’s president and CEO Michael Lindsay said the lengthy term was similar to other projects of this size and scope.

The document says Therme will pay the province a minimum rent of 3.5 per cent of the assessed land value, indexed to inflation, plus “performance rent” depending on its revenues, a bill the province says would total about $4-million a year in 2034. The company has also agreed to pay maintenance fees for the new parkland. Therme has pledged to build around its site, and the province says these fees will cost Therme $37-million between 2034 and 2044.

The lease was unveiled as the province began cutting down trees on the West Island of Ontario Place as part of its preparation work. Norm di Pasquale of the group Ontario Place for All suggested the lease was meant to be a distraction from the tree cutting, calling the timing “questionable.”

Ash Milton a spokesperson for Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma, said the government had committed to unveiling the lease “as soon as we were able to do so” and that the document came out on Thursday because negotiations had been completed.

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Premier Doug Ford’s plans to transform Ontario Place, a former amusement park shuttered in 2012, have sparked vehement criticism from opposition parties in the legislature and from local activists. They accuse the government of giving away public land for a “mega spa” and argue it should be a public park. In 2022, the company and the government unveiled revised plans to include additional public parkland, including a new beach, around Therme’s complex.

The government has also faced pushback for its plan to move the abruptly shuttered Ontario Science Centre to Ontario Place. Its plans for the site also include an expansion of the existing Live Nation concert venue there and the preservation of the iconic Cinesphere and “pod” buildings that date from the original Ontario Place park that opened in 1971.

In all, Therme’s lease says it will spend at least $700-million at the site, putting $500-million toward its large glass-enclosed spa and waterpark and another $200-million for 16 acres of public park space.

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Critics have seized on the government’s pledge to build a new waterfront parking garage for Therme, expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, saying the province should not be subsidizing a for-profit attraction.

The lease unveiled on Thursday requires Ontario to provide a minimum of 1,800 parking spaces at Ontario Place, with 1,600 to be reserved for Therme’s new facility. But the Ontario government wants to build even more spaces than required – 2,500 – to meet demand, with spaces needed for the expanded concert venue and the relocated Ontario Science Centre.

The government has yet to say how much it will cost. Ontario and the City of Toronto are in talks about putting the parking at nearby Exhibition Place. The lease stipulates that the parking must be no more 650 metres from Therme’s entry pavilion and includes financial penalties if it isn’t ready when the spa is to open in 2030.

While the deal says Ontario will spend up to $15-million on flood mitigation and shoreline-repair measures and up to $10-million for landscape design, it does not outline the total the province is spending to prepare the site. Mr. Lindsay told reporters at a technical briefing it was in the hundreds of millions but would not provide a figure. The Globe and Mail reported in 2022 that Infrastructure Ontario had pegged this cost at up to $200-million.

Both Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles and Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie criticized the deal on Thursday. But a different government could find it difficult to cancel the lease.

If the deal is called off before Therme takes over the site and begins construction – expected in the next two years – it would cost $30-million, the document says. After that, the lease only allows the province to pull the plug on the Therme spa after 10 years, with five-years’ notice.

But to do so, the province would have to cover a year’s lost profits and pay to build a replacement facility for Therme elsewhere. The province would also have to demolish the existing Therme structure at Ontario Place at its own expense.

With a report from Alex Bozikovic