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“We’ll have a berm at the front. You’ll barely even see a parking lot,” Ford said Tuesday at the lakeside facility as he released a map and renderings that show the garage with a giant Ontario Place sign looming tall over a berm planted with trees and shrubs.

“It’s going to be spectacular,” he said, projecting revenues from the taxpayer-funded garage at $60 million a year in addition to 5,000 construction and tourism jobs to be created by the entire project at Ontario Place, which has been largely dormant since its 2012 closure by former Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty following steep financial losses. 

Earlier plans were for a 2,500-spot car park but Ford said it has been expanded to hold 3,500 vehicles, providing plenty of spaces for daily visitors to the privately owned Therme waterpark and spa, attractions and concert goers with the government estimating up to 6 million people a year will visit.    

Other drawings providing a sneak peek of the Ontario Place site with the iconic Cinesphere geodesic dome and relocated Ontario Science Centre show beaches, interactive fountains, event spaces, free public trails, a playground and expanded green spaces. The marina will be also updated. 

There will be a revitalized year-round Live Nation amphitheatre on the site of the current Budweiser Stage and a 3,400-square foot Indigenous cultural pavilion.

“We’re just so excited to have our presence and our footprint known right here in homelands,” said Chief Claire Sault of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.

The designs were done after consultations with First Nations in sharp contrast to Ford’s approach to Bill 5, the contentious legislation to fast-track mining projects and infrastructures.

There will also be a massive treehouse for kids, a one-acre splash fountain as part of a 50-acre public park and beaches with canoe and kayak launch sites and stone lookout points on the water as well as a lakeside boardwalk and cycling paths. 

The Progressive Conservative government noted the new park will be 14 acres larger than Trinity Bellwood, one of the city’s most popular green spaces.

But a year after the abrupt closure of the original science centre in Don Mills — due to structural concerns — a promised temporary museum remains in limbo. Two smaller pop-up science centre exhibits are open at Harbourfront and Sherway Gardens mall.

“There’s not been a decision,” Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma said of an interim science centre.

Amid concerns from critics about private-sector involvement in a provincially owned public space, Surma said the government is seeking bids from builders for the science centre and other venues on the site, with construction expected to start next year and hopes of reopening Ontario Place in 2029.

“I’m just going to push it like crazy,” said Ford, who faces a scheduled election that year. 

Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie warned that the devil will be in the details on the premier’s new parking lot scheme.

“This is a government that doesn’t do their due diligence,” said Crombie, pointing at the secretive 95-year lease with Therme.

Speaking for the spa company, former local Liberal MP and one-time waterfront city councillor Adam Vaughan said Therme has no concerns about the parking changes.

“How the province delivers the parking is up to them, and they’re making the money from it,” he told reporters. “That’s good for Ontario taxpayers.”

More details on the waterpark and spa will be released in “a couple of weeks,” Vaughan added.

New Democrat MPP Chris Glover (Spadina—Fort York) objected to Ford’s bid to turn the parking lot into a revenue stream.

“His goal here is to make money off the backs of the people of Ontario to access their own parkland.”

Therme, a European company with two large spa resorts in Munich and Bucharest, has a 95-year lease at Ontario Place with Infrastructure Ontario, the government agency in charge of the massive redevelopment project.

Last December, Ontario’s auditor general raised concerns about the Therme deal, saying the company was given special access to provincial executives during a bidding process “that was not fair or transparent” and that its finances “appeared weak.”

On Tuesday, Ford defended the agreement with the firm as solid.

“I’m very, very satisfied.” 

Councillor Ausma Malik (Ward 10-Spadina-Fort York) blasted the project.

“Ontario Place should connect people to our waterfront, not block them with a massive parking structure,” said Malik.

Mayor Olivia Chow said city hall had wanted the parking lot across Lake Shore at municipal-owned Exhibition Place, but was unable to secure that.

“I offered (the province) Exhibition Place to say ‘Hey, you want to build a parking lot? Come over to this side,’” Chow said, referring to a site north of the waterfront.

“I was trying to get them to build underground and build something beautiful above ground. They did not take my advice but it’s Ontario land, it’s their parking lot. What can I say?” the mayor told a Star editorial board meeting.

Green Leader Mike Schreiner panned what he called a “deeply flawed” scheme

“This is not revitalization. It is a reckless misuse of public land and a waste of money.”

With files from David Rider