Immediately upon the closure of Ontario Place, the grounds were offered up as a location for the new casino that the OLG is planning for build in the Greater Toronto Area. However, it has recently been determined that the former amusement park grounds are not a suitable location for a casino complex on as large of a scale as the OLG has proposed. Especially with big names like Wynn and MGM showing interest in the new Toronto casino, the location will have to be enough to host miles of entertainment venues.
According to Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, Ontario Place is not an ideal location for the new casino complex. He states that it is not actually large enough to host a casino, especially one as large as the OLG has suggested. Should a casino be located close by, Duncan states that Ontario Place could be a part of it. Calling it the ‘golden mile’, it seems as though he envisions the new casino complex as an entity comparable to the Las Vegas Strip. If that does, in fact, end up being the case, then Ontario Place could host a portion of the entertainment complex related to the new gambling venue.
However, he believes that Windsor presents a better example of land-use when it comes to building a casino complex. The Caesar’s casino gambling venue stretches across over 10 miles of land and is located on the waterfront. Duncan believes that this is the ideal use of land for a casino complex, and knows that Ontario Place alone would not be able to support this type of construction. In the end, though, it will be up to the provincial government to decide, as Ontario Place’s grounds are owned by the province.
There are plenty of other locations available for the new casino, too. The mayors of Mississauga and Markham have expressed interest in hosting the casino, but Toronto Mayor Rob Ford does not want to lose the venue to either of these cities. In fact, he would like to see the casino located in a more central area: Exhibition Place. However, it seems that the proposal may run into the same problem that Ontario Place encountered; there simply may not be enough space to host a large casino complex.
