{"id":51242,"date":"2015-04-01T13:00:34","date_gmt":"2015-04-01T17:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=51242"},"modified":"2015-04-07T09:50:36","modified_gmt":"2015-04-07T13:50:36","slug":"stadia-mania-torontos-six-decade-quest-civic-stadium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/04\/01\/stadia-mania-torontos-six-decade-quest-civic-stadium\/","title":{"rendered":"Stadia mania: Toronto’s six-decade quest for a civic stadium"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Stadocentre, Metrodome, Astrodome, and Tower Dome: Toronto historically has had no lack of imagination when it comes\u00a0to dreaming up gleaming, state-of-the-art municipal stadiums. Yet for more than six decades, the goal of\u00a0building a multi-purpose sports venue\u00a0in Toronto seemed frustratingly elusive. Grand 1920s colosseums, modernist arenas, even a stadium with a giant fabric roof were\u00a0conceived only to be\u00a0rejected or superseded by grander ideas.<\/p>\n

With the Toronto Blue Jays preparing to begin their 26th season under the retractable roof of the Rogers Centre, here’s a look back at\u00a0Toronto’s long history of dashed stadium dreams.<\/p>\n

The idea\u00a0of a downtown sports stadium first surfaced\u00a0in the years after the first world war. The trauma of the conflict combined with the city’s ambitions for expansion inspired\u00a0an organization called the Sportsmen’s Patriotic League to lobby for a 16,000-seat municipal stadium\u00a0on\u00a0reclaimed waterfront land between Strachan and Bathurst, roughly where Coronation Park is located today.<\/p>\n

The $220,000 War Memorial Staidum would, according to League spokesman\u00a0Patrick J. Mulqueen, help “rehabilitate the greatest of all Canadian assets, its manhood.”<\/p>\n

\"unbuilt<\/a>
1923 Memorial Stadium proposal, Chapman, Oxley & Bishop architects. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 200, Series 372, Subseries 52.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Plans drawn up by architecture firm Chapman, Oxley & Bishop\u00a0envisioned\u00a0a grand neoclassical colosseum with seating around an oval field. The shape lent itself to range of athletic uses, including baseball, football, soccer. Bathurst streetcars\u00a0would service\u00a0the main entrance and there was to be ample parking.<\/p>\n

The idea\u00a0had the support of the city, but the expense was rejected in a January 1923 referendum. The design of the stadium, particularly its grand arcaded entrance, didn’t die so easily. Chapman, Oxley & Bishop were later asked to renovate\u00a0the lakefront field of the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team, and the company\u00a0reworked\u00a0several\u00a0of their ideas into that\u00a0design, which was completed\u00a0in 1926.<\/p>\n

\"toronto
Riverdale Park with a superimposed Wrigley Field, 1959. Toronto Telegram archives.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It wasn’t until after the second world war that idea of a municipal stadium was earnestly\u00a0pursued again. Hungry for a major league ball\u00a0club, maybe even the\u00a0Olympics,\u00a0maps were drawn up showing a variety of possible stadium sites, including Riverdale Park, the Don Valley,Thorncliffe Race Track, (old) Woodbine Race Track at Kingston Rd. and Queen, and a former clay pit turned garbage dump on Greenwood Ave.<\/p>\n

The Riverdale Park stadium\u2014a replica of California’s Rose Bowl dubbed the “Maple Bowl” by Controller Joseph Cornish\u2014was rejected due to drainage issues and lack of public transit connections.\u00a0Before long the stadium idea had returned to the back burner.<\/p>\n

Then in 1959, in an attempt to land the 1968 Olympics, the idea of a 100,000-seater stadium was floated\u2014literally\u2014south of of the Exhibition Grounds. Based on the design of the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Australia, the expansion\u00a0of which was central to Australia’s successful\u00a0bid for the 1956 Games, the $10 million bowl would have been located in the lake roughly where Ontario Place is today.<\/p>\n

The designs were permanently shelved when the International Olympic Committee awarded the games to Mexico City instead.<\/p>\n

\"unbuilt<\/a>
1964 Olympic bid stadium, 1959, G. Ross Anderson architect. Toronto Telegram archives, ASC06973.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite the setback, Toronto’s city fathers were still hungry for stadium. Exploratory committees were formed at the municipal level and pitches were made to Major League Baseball, either for a team in the planned\u00a0Continental League or an expansion franchise in either the American or National league.<\/p>\n

Rather than set up shop north of the border, the American League added\u00a0the Los Angeles Angels and Washington Senators (now Texas Rangers.) Another set back.<\/p>\n

Over the next decade, stadiums were dreamt\u00a0up in\u00a0Rosedale and Downsview, where a $100 million complex on the site of the former air force base was pitched\u00a0by developer Al Chapman, but all went nowhere.<\/p>\n

A copy of the Houston Astrodome, the world’s first domed stadium and “Eighth Wonder of the World,” was considered\u00a0as part of a planned redevelopment of the downtown railway lands\u00a0but, as Mike Filey writes\u00a0in his book Like No Other in the World<\/em>, the first public meeting\u00a0ended in a shouting match: “Not a nickel of taxpayers’ money for sports,” people shouted.<\/p>\n

Undeterred by the IOC’s decision to grant Mexico City the 1968 games, Toronto this time\u00a0prepared to make a push for the 1976 event. Central to the pitch was a pair of domed facilities on the waterfront near the CNE, but it was Montreal that ended up\u00a0with the games\u00a0and the grand stadium\u2014the infamous and long-troubled “Big O” (or maybe the “Big Owe.”)<\/p>\n

\"unbuilt<\/a>
1976 Olympic stadium proposal, 1968. Toronto Public Library.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1969, at Downsview, North York Mayor Jim Service lobbyied for a circular municipal stadium on the federally-owned former airport lands. Following\u00a0a visit to Houston’s famed ballpark in 1969, Service believed\u00a0that a Downsview facility might\u00a0lure a NFL franchise north of the border. Even the Maple Leafs expressed an interest in quitting the Gardens for the planned dome, hotel, and convention centre. But again, the plans stalled.<\/p>\n

It would take the rain-soaked 1982 Grey Cup game at the Exhibition Stadium to truly get the “Metrodome” project rolling. As an ice-cold deluge soaked all but a lucky few of the 32,000 spectators, including Metro Toronto Chair Paul Godfrey and Ontario Premier William Davis,\u00a0the concession stands ran out of hot drinks, washrooms overflowed, and fights erupted in the stands. It was clear Toronto needed a covered stadium\u2014and fast.<\/p>\n

A special provincial committee was formed to sniff out\u00a0viable sites.\u00a0Early proposals included the Trillium Dome, a covered arena at the centre of a\u00a03,000-acre development at Highway 401 and Hurontario St. in Mississauga,\u00a0and a third Downsview stadium, this one with a retractable roof.<\/p>\n

\"unbuilt<\/a>
Proposed 1969 Downsview stadium. CP Wire Service.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The idea of a stadium that could be both indoor and outdoor depending on the weather appeared to stick, even if the Downsview location did not. When the Canadian National Railway announced plans for an arena on surplus downtown land adjacent to the CN Tower in 1984, the\u00a0company’s mock-ups showed\u00a0a field covering that could be stowed in good weather.<\/p>\n

The province\u00a0liked CN’s proposed stadium and its folding roof\u00a0and\u00a0hammered out a financing deal with\u00a0CN, Toronto, and a slew of private companies, including Coca-Cola, McDonalds, and CIBC, who got exclusive access to SkyBoxes and concession rights.<\/p>\n

(Interestingly, Mike Filey recalls media consultant Charlie Cipolla suggested that coin-operated Pac Man machines be installed around Toronto as a possible way to raise cash for the Dome. The games would pay out instant cash prizes and enter players into a lottery draw. The idea didn’t make it beyond the proposal stage.)<\/p>\n

The design of the roof was put out to tender, and a four\u00a0viable proposals were received: one opened and closed like the shutter of a camera, another retracted like a sliding door.\u00a0The winner, designed by architect Rod Robbie and\u00a0submitted by developer EllisDon, consisted of four\u00a0separate pieces that would\u00a0spin and slide into place.<\/p>\n

The SkyDome opened on June 3, 1989, more than sixty\u00a0years after Toronto first dreamed of a downtown municipal stadium. It cost $600 million, but now when rainclouds loom, all it takes is the push of a button to close out the weather. No more ice cold showers.<\/p>\n

Mark Osbaldeston’s Unbuilt Toronto 2<\/em>\u00a0has\u00a0perhaps the wisest words about the SkyDome\/Rogers Centre from Blue Jays President and CEO Paul Beeston:<\/p>\n

“Is it Camden Yards or PNC Park? No. Does it have the history of Fenway Park or Wrigley Field? No. But it’s ours, the roof works, we start our games at 7:07 at 1:07 and we play every day we’re supposed to play.”<\/p>\n

Note: An earlier version of this story\u00a0stated that the\u00a0baseball arena\u00a0in the Riverdale Park photo was Maple Leaf Stadium. It is, in fact, Chicago’s Wrigley Field.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Stadocentre, Metrodome, Astrodome, and Tower Dome: Toronto historically has had no lack of imagination when it comes\u00a0to dreaming up gleaming, state-of-the-art municipal stadiums. Yet for more than six decades, the goal of\u00a0building a multi-purpose sports venue\u00a0in Toronto seemed frustratingly elusive. Grand 1920s colosseums, modernist arenas, even a stadium with a giant fabric roof were\u00a0conceivedContinue reading “Stadia mania: Toronto’s six-decade quest for a civic stadium”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8234,"featured_media":51261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,24,50,47,14,20],"tags":[10170,6147,22032,5384,22031,22029,22028,19,22030],"class_list":["post-51242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-architecture","category-history","category-infrastructure","category-parks","category-spacing","category-urban-design","tag-cne","tag-downsview","tag-memorial-stadium","tag-rogers-centre","tag-skyome","tag-sports","tag-stadium","tag-toronto","tag-unbuilt"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nStadia mania: Toronto's six-decade quest for a civic stadium - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2015\/04\/01\/stadia-mania-torontos-six-decade-quest-civic-stadium\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Stadia mania: Toronto's six-decade quest for a civic stadium - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Stadocentre, Metrodome, Astrodome, and Tower Dome: Toronto historically has had no lack of imagination when it comes\u00a0to dreaming up gleaming, state-of-the-art municipal stadiums. Yet for more than six decades, the goal of\u00a0building a multi-purpose sports venue\u00a0in Toronto seemed frustratingly elusive. 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