Premier Gordon Campbell spoke of huge economic benefits for B.C. as he presided over today’s grand opening of the massively over-budget Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre expansion.
“Thank goodness that we have such a spectacular facility that will drive economic activity for years into the future,” he told reporters after wielding a pair of large scissors to cut the ribbon. “It’s a real economic powerhouse we’re standing in today.”
Campbell estimated the gleaming steel and glass structure with sweeping views of the North Shore Mountains will bring $2 billion worth of economic activity to the province.
That’s because 180 conventions have already been booked between now and the end of 2009, said federal international trade minister Stockwell Day, who was on hand for the opening. The facility will also become home to the broadcast centre for the 2010 Olympics.
Day was adamant all the attention will boost tourism to Vancouver and B.C. “People will arrive here as delegates and leave here as ambassadors,” he said.
Meanwhile, NDP MLA Adrian Dix called the convention expansion a “financial disaster."
The original price tag was $495 million, which included a capped federal injection to share the cost. In the end, expenditures rose to $883 million, leaving the province on the hook for almost $400 million.
“This is the largest overrun of any public project in B.C. history,” Dix told The Tyee in an interview before the opening. “That money is now spent and gone.”
Campbell’s Liberal government is to blame for squandering public dollars on a poorly planned project that could have gone to healthcare or transportation, he said. The premier countered that cost overruns are due to spikes in steel and construction costs over the last few years.
A 2007 Auditor General’s report suggested last-minute building changes and a rush to meet a tight Winter Games deadline helped costs balloon.
Come 2010, the centre will host 10,000 accredited media, though the expansion is not included in the B.C. government’s Olympic budget.
Last month, finance minister Colin Hansen said a projected economic impact of $10.7 billion from the Games is being revised due to the recession. The number is the highest estimate from a 2002 InterVISTAS study and includes a projected $5.6 billion windfall from the convention centre expansion.
Geoff Dembicki is a staff reporter for The Hook.
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DPL
4 years ago
Sure it must be great, after
Sure it must be great, after all Gordo says it will be great, and Gordo is never wrong. What a gang, they kept changing the estimates and each time said, this amount is firm. Anyone believe him? Firts is was absolutly necessasy for the Olympics, then when asked why it wasn't in the Olympic budget, it suddenlt had nothing to do with the Olympics. Sure Gordo, if you say so it must be right. Might be a great place to house the folks who can't afford a room to live in. Now two convention centers a few blocks apart. Only in BC you say. Yep, the greatest place on earth, if you have lots of money to throw around
doggone
4 years ago
Nanaimo's got one too
Good to find out how much fiscal fantasy they will be "generating" soon.
These projects were planned so long ago (these days two years puts your planning way out of date) they have become fiscal dinosaurs.
About 16 years ago even the local health system was using "convention centres"to get their people together and do the latest "update" of skill. I stayed with my wife who works for them in an hotel suite (on my way to work for an NGO in Africa). Very compfy and in those days only about $90 per night. Those days are obviously gone.
Even high end business can be done with internet connections and teleconferance. Nowadays only the real hitters (Obamma and Harper and their aids) need to fly about the planet making appearances.
They ain't likely to stay in yer local convention centre (though if they do they and the security will take up the whole place and very likely displace casino custom)
I am willing to accept that the premire and his advisors are much more knowledgable in this particular regard than I but:
The mess in downtown Vancouver currently and the total lack of business in Nanaimo's new centre make me wonder who advised who
Campbellwearsatutu
4 years ago
Does that make sense.......
Stockwell day states there are 180 conventions booked up to the end of 2009?
Well considering there are only 256 odd days left in year,these conventions must be at most booked for 1.42 days each?
How long are conventions?Aren`t they usually 3,4,5 days?
Do companies fly in 1000s of people/employees/agents/customers for conventions that are 1.42 days long?
Perhaps they are counting the 60 days that Vanoc will have the convention center/november through to and after the olympics?
Of course Vanoc won`t be paying anything for use of the convention center.
DJT
4 years ago
A tidy sum into the pockets
A tidy sum into the pockets of hotel management, restaurant and bar owners while the folks doing the grunt work get peanuts? This is what you call an economic powerhouse? I don't care how much these idiots make. Until every last penny the government spent on this building is recouped via actual convention rental, the thing is not paid for, plain and simple.
Dungeness_Crab
4 years ago
"In the end, expenditures
"In the end, expenditures rose to $883 million, leaving the province on the hook for almost $400 million."
But lawdy lawd, let's ne'er breathe a word of the fast cats now, shall we?
This boondoggle alone makes Clark look like a piker.
Van Isle
4 years ago
Heard parts of the Bill Good
Heard parts of the Bill Good show yesterday morning and had to turn it off cuz I felt I was going to puke. Bill and his 2 comic-relief-sidekick-characters, Tweedle-dumb and Tweedle-dee, kept harping on about the fast-cats, but the convention centre was such a marvel. See, NDP bad, Liberal good message is already out there.
Grumpy
4 years ago
The convention centre is a relic of 1950's thinking.
The age of the grand convention centre is dewing to a close as business is cutting frills. Even large fraternal groups, such as the Shiners are curtailing massive conventions because they don't have enough money to fund their famous hospitals (KOMO TV).
Like the RAV/Canada Line, these multi billion dollar mega-projects were done more to keep local employed and divert tax money to friends of the government, than to provide good public venues.
We are in a new economy, yet Gordo wants to pretend nothing has happened and it is business as usual. Such thinking leads to a sorta "Storming of the Bastille", by a public grown weary of tax and spend governments like the Campbell Liberals.
Grumpy
4 years ago
Oh, by the way.............
........the cost of the RAV line was first put at $1.2 billion in 2003 and is now topping $2.5 billion!
Do I hear cost overrun? Hey Bill Boring, Palmer and Baldry - DO I HEAR COST OVERRUN?
Dan the socialist
4 years ago
"In the end, expenditures
"In the end, expenditures rose to $883 million, leaving the province on the hook for almost $400 million."
yet MSM like Global and the other right wing network CTV never mention this, most people I talk to whether at Tim Hortons or in line at Grocery store have no clue about this, so unless the NDP can get this out, it will not have any effect on up coming election...
However if the NDP were in power the pro right media Canwest (Global) and CTV would have it as a top story for months...
Unfortunately the NDP will be lucky to win 25 seats next month and the pro right wing media we have in BC will play a large part in that with their never ending bias..