The historic stone carvings adorning the outer walls of the Air Canada Centre are going to pieces — literally.

The Art Deco panels bring into vivid relief the icons of industrial progress and modernity — a train, steamship and airplane — as well as figures of early Canadiana, from mushers to voyageurs. But deterioration of the carvings, especially those sitting parallel to the Gardiner Expressway, has erased fine detail and given portions a porous, sponge-like appearance.

Salt spray and carbon pollution from the Gardiner — metres away from the south façade — have gnawed away at the limestone panels, corroding the integrity of pieces chiseled by a preeminent 20th-century Canadian sculptor and protected under the Ontario Heritage Act.

Documents obtained by the Star reveal a two-year back-and-forth between the city and site owner Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE). So far, that has produced no tangible protection measures for the bas-reliefs, parts of which can crumble at the swipe of a hand.

“The work’s ruined,” says Louis Temporale, Jr., son of the sculptor behind the 78-year-old artworks, Louis Temporale, Sr., who died in 1994. “It has gone past the point of no return.”

He says MLSE has shirked its duty to preserve the heritage pieces, adding the city should have pushed the sports giant harder in recent years.

The younger Temporale re-carved and restored portions of the 35 panels in the late 1990s, shortly after the ACC property owners signed a conservation contract with the city. That heritage easement agreement from 1996 obliges the property owner to “minimize the deterioration” to the former Postal Delivery Building’s facades and protect them from “damage from inclement weather.”

Toronto Heritage Preservation Services alerted the MLSE board of governors to the “severely deteriorated state” of the reliefs, an apparent breach of contract, in a letter dated June 14, 2014. Then-acting head of Heritage Mary MacDonald reminded them of their obligation to maintain the historic carvings.

Since then, no protective covering, temporary or otherwise, has been installed. Narrow overhangs above the panels are “not performing to keep rain off the artwork,” wrote Toronto preservation co-ordinator Mary Pedersen in an email last month to MLSE, which encompasses TV stations, real estate and sports teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors.

“We’ve been working with Heritage Preservation Services since the first inquiry in 2014 to come up with both a short-term and a longer-term strategy for the protection of the carvings,” ACC building operations director Bryan Leslie told the Star earlier this month.

Sean Fraser, director of programs and operations for the Ontario Heritage Trust, noted the sculptures — “a touchstone for the past and something to inspire us in the future” — are “non-renewable.”

“Like all cultural heritage, you get one chance to fix these things… Once you lose them, you lose them forever,” he said.

The easement states the city can serve a notice to the site owner demanding specific “remedies” within a three-month timeline if the owner has “neglected… its obligations.”

Despite MLSE’s pledge to implement a solution by February, progress on even temporary fixes seemed to snag on smaller points, like welded joints or “flexible gaskets,” recent emails suggest.

Pedersen warned Leslie in an email Feb. 19: “(I)f the next set of drawings do not respond to my concerns, or at the very least provide an explanation for why they do not include my requested revisions, I will have to conclude (and I am beginning to believe) that you are not as committed to this task as I had hoped you would be.”

Macdonald expressed her frustration with the lack of progress as early as August 2015.

“The winter is coming,” she wrote in an email to Leslie, “and we do not want these reliefs to be exposed to another freeze/thaw cycle.”

Leslie noted MLSE is working with an architectural firm in consultation with two conservators. “It’s complicated because air circulation is critical, freeze-thaw conditions, the status of relative humidity…”

About two weeks ago, the city gave MLSE approval to test out a breathable protective wrapping, for possible implementation next winter, Leslie told the Star.

MacDonald’s initial 2014 alert did prompt an “emergency” heritage assessment, penned by Temporale in May 2015, offering a way forward: remove the panels from the wall; chemically treat and desalinate them to strengthen the stone; and restore and display them indoors along the PATH.

Bronze replicas of the touched-up reliefs could be cast for display where the current slabs sit, Temporale suggested.

A second survey by an architect and conservator recommended less comprehensive efforts. Installing a specialized, breathable cover for the panels in winter and scrubbing away “pollutant grime” each autumn would do the preservative trick, the December 2015 report stated.

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A permanent salt spray screen, light desalination and restoration were also suggested, at an estimated total cost of $365,000 to $600,000, according to the survey.

“The stone matrix in regards to stability is gone, along with the artistic integrity,” said Temporale. “It’s like a patient is dying of a terminal illness, and they’re worried that he cut his finger.

“It’s too little, too late,” he said.

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