New president of Ontario Association of Architects wants to put a spotlight on Sudbury

The new president of the Ontario Association of Architects hopes to use that role to put the spotlight on his hometown of Sudbury.

In addition to leading the regulatory body for architects in the province, Ted Wilson teaches at Laurentian University's McEwen School of Architecture in the downtown area.

Wilson grew up in Sudbury, but later moved to Toronto with his family and eventually studied architecture at the University of Waterloo.

He returned to Sudbury when he became the architectural co-ordinator for a project to build Canada's newest architecture school in downtown Sudbury. The school opened in 2013 and Wilson later became a professor there.

He said returning to his hometown later in life has given him a new perspective on the northern Ontario city.

"I think having seen and walked through the smelter in Copper Cliff when I was a kid and having seen the Super Stack go up — the world before it, the world after it — I'm seeing the full arc of what is now becoming the end of that story," he said.

"And in the middle of that, seeing the incredible transformation to the place from what it was when I was young."

Wilson said he finds inspiration in Sudbury's regreening efforts, where millions of trees were planted to revitalize a landscape that was made bare by over a century of mining activity.

"It takes a little bit of time for them to appreciate that when they walk in the forest," he said about his students.

"If we're out at Lake Laurentian or one of the other parts of the major conservation areas here, to know that all of what they see around them has only been here for 30 or 40 years — the forest didn't exist prior to that."

Wilson said he believes the same potential for transformation exists in Sudbury's downtown core.

The McEwen School of Architecture was built downtown, in part, in an effort to revitalize that area of the city.

But Wilson admitted the city's downtown has faced challenges, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic amplified the addiction and homelessness crises, which are most visible in that part of the city.

"I'd say, yeah, there are some things that are challenges," he said.

"But my family, we have in Barrie, we have in Orillia, we have in Toronto and Ottawa, [they face] the same things to a degree, more or less. So the issues downtown are not unique and they're not particular."

Wilson said Sudbury has a unique opportunity to revitalize its downtown with a planned $200-million arena and event centre slated to open in 2028.

He said London, Ont., and Moncton, N.B., both had similar projects in their downtowns that led to a spur of investment in the area.

"The introduction of the event centre has, for $100 million roughly in those two projects 10 years ago, resulted in $1-billion worth of commercial investment in the core," he said.

In a similar fashion, he believes Sudbury's downtown core will be nearly unrecognizable seven years from now.

And as president of the Ontario Association of Architects, he wants to share that story with his colleagues across the country.