Article content continued

“We were on a great trajectory here to get our house into much better shape,” he said, noting museum staff met with representatives from Downsview Park on Sept. 12 to discuss future plans and to pay a debt of $22,000 in back rent. That settled the museum’s rental debt up to the end of 2010, but still left the organization owing the park more than $100,000 for this year.

Though the meeting seemed positive, Mr. Cohen said, the park returned the $22,000 two days later, along with a letter stating the museum was in breach and had six days to pay the full amount.

“The park was not forthright,” he said. “They were not honest with us about what their overall plan was.”

David Soknacki, chairman of the board for the Crown corporation that maintains Downsview Park, would not comment on the rent issue, but said all six tenants of the building at 65 Carl Hall Rd. were served notice that the park would take possession of the facility in six months.

“The reason we need that is because the building is crumbling, and we have an operator that is willing to invest $20-million in the building in order to put in a four-pad ice complex,” Mr. Soknacki said, noting the rinks, funded by private investment, would serve hundreds of thousands of people for hockey games and public skates.

Toronto’s dearth of available skating facilities was addressed last year in a similar proposal for a stacked, four-pad hockey arena in the Port Lands. Though funding remained an unknown, the $88-million proposal was approved by the Miller administration in 2010, only to be squashed by the Ford team this year.