Ontario Construction News staff writer
The condition of the roof is not the only critical problem at the Ontario Science Centre building. There are also issues with the heating, sprinkler and electrical systems, officials said Thursday, releasing a report.
The 55-year-old Scarborough site was closed in June, to ensure all exhibits could be moved out before the possibility of snow on the roof created an additional risk, Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma said at a news conference.
“Our priority is to decommission the building safely right now, work on an interim location for science centre programming and then of course, focus our energies on a new science centre,” Surma said.
The province was already planning to relocate the science centre to the redeveloped waterfront Ontario Place attraction, and the fate of the building will be decided by the City of Toronto with the City of Toronto, which along with its conservation authority leased the land to the province to operate the science centre.
“When buildings reach the end of life, 50 or 60 years … things begin to fail and more fundamental lifecycle replacement projects are needed – the bridge, the roof, the central mechanical system, boilers and chillers,” said Michael Lindsay, CEO at Infrastructure Ontario. “So now would be the time for any asset that is this age to think about what the future ultimately would be, and whether those investments are going to be made.”
The government released a peer reviewed engineering report on Thursday, which concluded that the evaluation of risk in the original report was reasonable.
While the report includes recommendations to mitigate risks through “immediate remediation of critical and high-risk panels and their eventual replacement” – to coincide with a roofing assembly replacement – are appropriate to safely extend the useful lifespan of the building structure,” Surma said remediation “wouldn’t be quick or straightforward”, and the condition of all the other aspects of the building must be considered when contemplating extending its lifespan.
The three buildings have connected systems with all mechanical systems, with the services for the building housing the great hall – such as heating pipes –running through a pedestrian bridge that was closed in 2022 due to safety concerns.
The heating pipe in that channel has broken, cutting off heat to the great hall building, and officials said if that is not fixed before the onset of winter it brings fire safety risks due to frozen pipes.
Also, windows have lost their structural integrity, the location in a ravine would also make major construction work difficult and there is a concern that working on the roof would disturb asbestos.