Ontario Science Center closed due to risk of roof collapse!

[thewayne]

The center was built in the 1960s using a new type of lightweight concrete. Sadly, they've learned that this concrete is a bit problematic and needs expensive remediation. While the roof is currently okay, there are concerns that come October, under heavy snow loads, there could be a catastrophic failure.

The center is to be moved to the Ontario Place site, the repairs to the roof will cost upwards of $40 million and will take up to two years. It's going to take four months to clear out the centre, and it is believed that no jobs will be lost but no guarantees that all jobs will be kept on-going.

But that isn't remotely the end of the story, oh no. The cost to do proper repairs to the centre? Upwards of $500 million! This concrete was used throughout, and it was learned that it has problems with moisture. Sadly, it seems that Canada occasionally has large amounts of moisture present.

But that isn't remotely the end of the story, oh no! It seems that Canada's favorite politician, Doug Ford, is interested in leveling the whole complex and giving it to a friend to build a spa! The company is both foreign and privately held. Further more, critics say that the Ford government have allowed the center's maintenance to be underfunded, aggravating its decline to bolster their argument that it should be torn down. And then what will we do with the land? Let's build a spa!

It's amazing that anyone with the name or any tenuous relation to the Ford family is allowed to hold office in Canada.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-science-centre-closing-roof-1.7242810

https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/06/21/2058256/ontario-science-center-to-close-immediately-over-roof-collapse-risk

Comments

[acelightning73]

I've never been there, but I wish I had - I love science museums, of course. And it seems that not all the engineers in Canada took the oath about working diligently, carefully and skillfully to ensure the safety and comfort of the people using the structure.

I utterly hate bad design, no matter where it appears. And it's particularly ironic that it's a science education center.

[graydon]

It wasn't bad design, as such, it was "it turns out that our best understanding of this particular concrete was wrong".

It'd help if Dougie wasn't so nakedly against the existence of civil power and so completely a creature of a criminal enterprise, but the original error was an honest one. (And it's not like other governments haven't known about the problem and had opportunities to fix it.)

Of course, the original construction also obliterated a wetlands site and was not an ecological net win and the drainage has been a problem there are all along.

[thewayne]

And from what I read, the place they want to move it to will have water exposure and drainage problems, too.

[graydon]

The place they're saying it will move to is also slated to be converted into condos.

Dougie has already tried twice and couldn't quite deal with the uproar but he's figured out that if he commits enough atrocities opposition gets diffused.

The point is to get rid of it. The provincial government is opposed to ALL government spending, on anything, ever. Exceptions can be made for direct fee-for-service but even there the premier is a zero-taxes antivaxer along with being a career criminal.

[armiphlage]

To be fair to the engineers, RAAC was considered a very good material at the time. It took half a century for problems with it to become apparent (notably in the UK, which is wetter). With respect to the Ontario Science Centre, maintenance was also deliberately deferred by the current Premier, as his goal since attaining office has been to find pretexts to bulldoze the Ontario Science Centre, the Ontario Place complex, and the Greenbelt lands surrounding the city, and sell the land to developers.

[thewayne]

Based on the comments in the Slashdot page, it was pretty much neglected and under-funded by the provincial gov't not long after the opening.  Pretty sad.

[acelightning73]

Nobody thought to find out whether the roof could be reinforced in some way to make it safer? I haven't been to a science museum since the last time I was in Boston. There's a big one in Jersey City, but the admission is expensive (and more money if you want to watch the IMAX movie or the planetarium show.) Maybe that's what the Canadian science museum needs to do - find things to charge extra for in order to afford repairs to the roof?

[richardf8]

Ford? The nazi sympathizers. If I'm going to drive a Nazi car, I'm going to do it up right and drive a Volkswagen! (I do, and if there's an exhaust leak the humor goes dark fast!)

[thewayne]

Very dark and very fast.   And we toured a VW assembly plant in Dresden nine years ago, very nice place.  Totally electric, no pneumatic tools in the place.

[mtbc]

It transpires that here we also made that same mistake of using that kind of concrete in constructing many British schools, oops.

[thewayne]

Yeah, and also NHS sites!  Do they have a lot of moisture in the UK?

[mtbc]

At least in some parts they do.

[dewline]

The Ford plan for the place was always going to be Demolition By Neglect.

[disneydream06]

That is a whole lotta OMg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
At least the States aren't the only ones dealing with a complete moron of a politician. :o :o :o
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

The funny thing was that Doug Ford's brother was even worse.  Major druggie and corrupt, IIRC died in office.  Then Dougie came in and proved to be pretty much as bad.  The family has 'Let's see how much we can leech from the public coffers' running through its blood.

[disneydream06]

Embarrassment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[thewayne]

Embarrassment, yet still elected.

[disneydream06]

Says a lot about the people... :(

[silveradept]

Provincial politics in Canada is at least as bad as provincial politics in the U.S., at least when there are Conservatives involved. I'm not surprised that they declined to fix the roof, nor am I surprised at the accusations of wanting to profit from the sale of the public land to someone else.