[PHOTO] Inside the atrium of the MaRS Discovery Centre

[rfmcdonald]

I explored inside the beautiful glass-walled atrium of the MaRS Discovery District's centrepiece tower, on the southeast corner of College and University next to the hospitals and academic institutions, on Doors Open this year. A planned centrepiece for academic-business science interactions, as The Globe and Mail's Kelly Grant notes the space has become a major election issue.

A few weeks before the tumult at Toronto’s MaRS centre exploded into public view, Ryerson University approached the Liberal government with a request: Was there anything the province could do about the lease rates at the MaRS tower, the gleaming monument to innovation sitting near-empty across from Queen’s Park?

Ryerson’s science department was searching for 25,000 square feet of specialized lab space near its Yonge and Dundas campus, making the tower, known as MaRS phase II, an ideal fit. But the school couldn’t afford to move there.

“The cost structure of MaRS was going to be very challenging,” Julia Hanigsberg, the vice-president of administration and finance at Ryerson, said. “If it was challenging for a university, it was obviously going to be very challenging for a start-up.”

Ms. Hanigsberg was told the government was working on the issue, but what she didn’t know at the time was the Liberals were quietly preparing a $317-million bailout of the MaRS tower, which, unable to lure enough tenants, was in danger of defaulting on the $235-million government loan that had made the innovation centre’s second phase possible.

Now, with another election looming, the Liberals are under fire for extending the loan in the first place, and for proposing in secret a plan to purchase the MaRS tower, buy out an American developer’s remaining interest in the project, and convert at least 10 floors of the tower to office space for bureaucrats.