When the green roof opens at City Hall next month, it will be a historic occasion: the first time the podium between the two towers has been open to the public in 30 years.

But the green roof is significant for another reason. It will mark the first completed step in a multi-million-dollar makeover of Nathan Phillips Square.

Friday the city is announcing the remaining $40 million in upgrades that will make the aging mid-’60s square, at the northwest corner of Queen and Bay Sts., a more inviting meeting place.

Within weeks, the western side will be partitioned off so the existing skating pavilion-concession stand can be demolished and replaced by a new two-storey restaurant, a permanent stage, the new Peace Garden and a new skating pavilion, much of which should be complete by mid-2011.

The remaining phases will include demolishing the existing Peace Garden and building a new fountain near the middle of the square, adding an information and tourist kiosk on Queen St., upgrading lighting and landscaping, and creating new elevated walkways that will connect to the second storey of the kiosk, restaurant and pavilion.

In the garage beneath, work on a path that will link a new bike storage facility — with 60 lockers and racks with 382 spaces — to Sheraton Place to the south has already begun.

About $19 million of the total $42.7 million pricetag will be used to repair structural elements such as walkways or the load-bearing concrete pillars underneath the square. About $3 million will be spent on upgrading compressors that freeze the artificial ice in the rink, an improvement that means it will stay open longer each winter.

The city set most of the maintenance money aside when the project was first proposed in 2005.

At the time, council suggested that the remaining money could come from corporate sponsorships, said the city’s chief corporate officer, Bruce Bowes, but the city’s partnership department found otherwise and the funds are now coming out of the city’s capital budget.

The 120,000-square-foot green roof opens officially May 29 as part of Doors Open, but will be permanently open to the public after that. Bowes expects it will operate just like any other city park.

The redesign will be complete in 2012.

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