{"id":501661,"date":"2026-02-26T21:46:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T21:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/501661\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T21:46:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T21:46:12","slug":"ford-government-awards-1b-contract-for-new-ontario-science-centre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/501661\/","title":{"rendered":"Ford government awards $1B contract for new Ontario Science Centre"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Ford government<\/a> has awarded the contract to design and build a relocated science centre at Ontario Place<\/a>, which it says could be open \u201cas early\u201d as 2029.<\/p>\n

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The province has put a new science centre at the heart of its plans to overhaul Ontario Place, which will be redeveloped to include a spa and waterpark, a new music venue and parkland.<\/p>\n

The redevelopment is one of Premier Doug Ford\u2019s signature projects, hoping to revitalize an area of Toronto\u2019s waterfront he believes has fallen into disrepair and turn it into a key tourism destination.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am just so excited about this, I just can\u2019t begin to tell you, this is going to be incredible,\u201d Ford raved on Thursday morning. \u201cWe\u2019re changing the face of not just Ontario but Toronto specifically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ford\u2019s plan to add the science centre to his redevelopment of Ontario Place accelerated in June 2024, when the government abruptly announced the attraction was closing forever at its Don Mills and Eglinton location, citing safety concerns.<\/p>\n

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Although internal documents show the closure was planned for more than a week, it was only made public a few hours before the Ontario Science Centre was boarded up for good.<\/p>\n

The closure saw some of the science centre\u2019s attractions decant to a mall in the west of the city and the Harborfront Centre as pop-ups, before moving to an interim location.<\/p>\n

Advocates have accused the government of deliberately neglecting the science centre leading up to the closure and choosing to close it when it could have been repaired instead.<\/p>\n

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They\u2019ve argued that relocating the Ontario Science Centre is being driven by improving the appeal of Ontario Place at the expense of other areas in the city. Ford repeated that the building needed to be urgently closed down, suggesting he thought its location at Don Mills and Eglinton had helped drive the decision to shutter it.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe old one \u2014 terrible location, first of all,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd secondly, it\u2019s decrepit. The stories I heard from mould; it was just unsafe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics aren\u2019t convinced, continuing to argue the government is moving the building to boost Ontario Place and the privately-operated spa planned to open on the same lands.<\/p>\n

\u201cOntarians deserve to know: who\u2019s benefitting from this? It\u2019s not the residents of Flemingdon Park, who I\u2019m sure didn\u2019t appreciate hearing the Premier refer to the location as \u2018terrible\u2019 at his press conference today,\u201d Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said in a statement.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis Premier is pushing ahead with a controversial project that nobody wants for his own political gain\u2014and we\u2019re not buying it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Ford has pressed ahead, saying the changes will revolutionize the waterfront and create an attraction even his doubters will fall in love with.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to thank them \u2014 honestly, I want to thank them for their passion,\u201d he said, telling the science centre to ensure members and campaigners were first to see the new site. \u201cI actually think the world of them. We need more people like those folks.\u201d<\/p>\n

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New renderings released Thursday as part of the announcement show the \u201creimagined\u201d Ontario Science Centre at its new home, where it will sit alongside renovated and enhanced pods at Ontario Place, which will feature science-themed programming.<\/p>\n

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The contract is between Ontario Science Partners and the province to build, finance and maintain the new building for $1.04 billion. Premier Doug Ford said he believed that would be the total cost of the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe it\u2019s a billion dollars,\u201d he confirmed.<\/p>\n

Paul Kortenaar, the CEO of the science centre, said the new building would have \u201climitless\u201d potential.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur future home will bring science to life in an inclusive and playful way, where visitors, including teachers and students, can experience the wonder of science,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ford government has awarded the contract to design and build a relocated science centre at Ontario Place,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,13403,43,44,200464,13404,200465,714,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-501661","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-ford-government","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-ontario-place","13":"tag-ontario-politics","14":"tag-ontario-science-centre","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}