governments also pledged funding for a new more modest project that would cost about million. The original plan called for a tower of offices and condominiums to be built by Olympia and York which would help fund the project. It would be further supplemented by a million donation by Christopher Ondaatje. However, both Olympia and York and Ondaatje developed concerns about the project and withdrew. More importantly, the municipal government of Toronto refused to provide any municipal funding. The project collapsed again in 2000. In 2002, the opera company under Richard Bradshaw issued an invitation in 2002 for designs. The company had secured a million donation from the Four Seasons hotel chain in exchange for perpetual naming rights to the complex. Ten architectural firms submitted proposals and the modernist design by Canadian company Diamond and Schmitt Architects, headed by Jack Diamond, was selected. The complex took three years to construct at an estimated cost of million. To provide wheelchair accessibility, elevator access to the concourse level of Osgoode subway station was integrated into the construction of the centre. The centre had its grand opening on 14 June 2006, with regularly scheduled performances commencing on 12 September 2006 with the inaugural production in the new opera house being Richard Wagner's epic tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). Governor General Michaëlle Jean and other prominent Canadians attended the event. Three complete Ring Cycles were performed in September 2006. R. Fraser Elliott Hall design The five-tiered, horseshoe-shaped auditorium was modelled after European opera houses. Collaborating with Diamond Schmitt, New York-based theatre planning and design specialists Fisher Dachs Associates arranged the room's geometry and seating configuration to bring each of the 2,000 seats, including tiered balconies, as close to the stage as possible while maintaining an unobstructed view. The acoustics were designed by Bob Essert of Sound Space Design and a team that included Aercoustics Engineering, Wilson Ihrig and Engineering Harmonics. The undulating back walls of the venue, which diffuse the sound throughout the auditorium by reflecting the sound waves back to the stage, account for about 90 percent of the audible sound for the audience. To prevent audience members from detecting specific sounds and vibrations including traffic noise, the rumble from the adjacent subway line and streetcar line, and even the sirens of the emergency vehicles rushing to the nearby hospitals, the theatre sits on 489 rubber insulating pads.