The plan to build a 46-storey condominium tower in the heart of the city's cultural district is history -- leaving a $20-million gap in the Royal Ontario Museum's rebuilding plan.
Citing "deep and broad" opposition from neighbouring residents and institutions, museum director and CEO William Thorsell announced yesterday that the project has been pulled from the approval process.
"We don't have the support we need, so it's just the logical thing to do," he said in an interview. He was reiterating what he said at Tuesday's fiery public consultation meeting where more than 200 people, including representatives of the faculties of law and music at the University of Toronto, opposed the project.
"I knew there would be controversy but I didn't think it would be this degree of opposition," Mr. Thorsell said. "It's too deep and broad to keep this project alive."
The layered-glass luxury tower was to rise within the footprint of U of T and Queen's Park in an area that has been predominantly institutional, rather than residential.
The ROM had applied to have the property of the defunct McLaughlin Planetarium rezoned.
The project, proposed as a co-development with Toronto-based Graywood Developments Ltd. and dubbed ROM South, would have given the provincially owned museum 35,000 square feet of storage and office space, and funnelled $20-million into the $230-million Renaissance ROM project that Mr. Thorsell has spearheaded.
But no tower means no money.
"We'll have to go back and get out there, beat the bushes even harder to raise it in the community," Mr. Thorsell said.
When Councillor Olivia Chow, whose Trinity-Spadina ward includes the ROM, heard the announcement, she whooped with joy. "I'm thankful that ROM heard the community and understood the opposition," she said.
"I hope that they would find the funding from the public and private sector to finish phase two," Ms. Chow said, noting that at the public meeting local residents promised to help with fundraising.
The ROM's has raised $176-million, including $30-million from Michael Lee-Chin, CEO of AIC Ltd., $20-million from Galen and Hilary Weston and $60-million from the federal and provincial governments. The first phase, featuring new galleries and the restoration of the Rotunda and Samuel Hall Currelly Gallery, is scheduled to open Dec. 26. The Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, designed by Daniel Libeskind, is still set to open next fall.
Mr. Thorsell said donor fatigue has struck the city, with several major cultural projects, including the ROM and Art Gallery of Ontario renovations, under way.
One thing the ROM's management does know is that any new proposal won't be much like the one withdrawn yesterday.
"Right now, we have nothing in mind," Mr. Thorsell said. "But if there's any height, it won't be very high at all."
With a report from Jennifer Lewington