The Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre : operating challenges of a 4P project

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the optimal method of uniformly operating a facility co-owned by two large public institutions. In 2014, the City of Toronto (“City”) and the University of Toronto – Scarborough Campus (“University”) will co-own the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre (“TPASC”), a facility currently under construction for the 2015 Pan/Parapan American Games (“Games”) which, post-Games will serve the community-at-large, the University community and the high performance sport community and will house the Canadian Sport Institute - Ontario. As a Games capital project, the TPASC construction is project managed by Ontario’s 3P (public private partnership) agency infrastructure Ontario, and is arguably a public-public private partnership (4P) project due to its two public owners. Four operating options for the TPASC are identified: (1) City and University operating programs separately under one roof; (2) City or University operating the facility on behalf of both entities; (3) City and University contracting out to an unrelated third party; and (4) City and University jointly creating a corporation for the purpose of operating the TPASC. These options are applied to an evaluation framework consisting of five critical factors (vision alignment, financial viability, customer service orientation, egalitarian owner focus and labour alignment). Option #4 (City and University jointly creating a coporation to operate TPASC) received the highest score and is the recommended option. Challenges related the recommended option are discussed.