The old Science Centre: 50 acres in Don Mills. What goes there?

Raymond Moriyama’s Ontario Science Centre stepped down the side of the Don ravine at 770 Don Mills Road for 55 years. On a Friday in June 2024 the province closed it, citing an engineering report about the roof, and it has not reopened.

Its replacement is under construction at Ontario Place, for $1.04 billion, opening 2029. The original sits empty, with the province saying it is maintaining the buildings and residents saying they see neglect. In July council moved to consider the site’s future, and a 47-page report recommended it stay some form of public space. The complication is the lease: signed in 1965, it restricts the land to a science centre and related uses, though it does not oblige anyone to run one. Council has already said the city-owned portion not earmarked for Housing Now should stay recreational and educational.

It is fifty acres in a ravine, beside two of the densest and least-served neighbourhoods in the city, with an Ontario Line station being built at its door. Nobody with the power to decide has said what it is for.

Sources: BTPM, council moves to consider the future of the site · blogTO, the abandoned Science Centre might not be dead · TorontoToday, the province says it is maintaining the buildings · The Green Line, the future of the building