Vancouver's Heart Up for Grabs
Shaping a $300 million arts district: Who decides? A special report.
Ground zero: QE Theatre
Downtown Vancouver is on the brink of a jaw-dropping transformation that few citizens know much about, but it will change life in the city forever.
The city, province and a handful of alpha-players in the arts scene are hammering out a scheme for a high-budget, architecturally spectacular arts district. The plans are gestating as we speak behind closed doors. If all goes well, within six months there will be an announcement that could finally shed Vancouver's reputation as merely a resort playground, and present the city as something of a cultural destination.
The question is: whose culture will it be?
The site in question is a two-block parcel of land next to the Vancouver Public Library, bounded by Georgia, Dunsmuir, Hamilton and Beatty streets. The city owns this land, and the aging Queen Elizabeth Theatre stands proudly on one block, but a lot of arts organizations are vying to plant spanking new edifices atop it. It will be Phase 1 of the city's ambitious "cultural precinct," a long-term plan to establish a concentration of respectable arts facilities, finally, in the centre of the city.
You can see the lay of the land yourself in a late-October city council report, co-authored by cultural manager Sue Harvey and cultural precinct manager Ken Dobell. The report is on a hard-to-find niche of the city website rather than on the roster of regular council meetings, but once found, it reveals both the complexity and the huge stakes behind the current in-camera talks.
As the council report notes, there are far more proposals for the site than money and space to accommodate them. Even if nothing much is said in public, the behind-the-scenes politicking is frenzied. This is a dogfight.
Culture on the block
The cultural precinct will be developed over a 15-year period, but there is already rough consensus for Phase 1. The three-point plan consists of:
1. Renovating the QE Theatre. (That's pretty straightforward.)
2. Establishing those two blocks as an "Olympic Live Site" to "showcase sports, arts, culture, the city and the future cultural precinct." (That gets a bit trickier.)
3.After 2010, building up the site with cultural facilities that are deemed "both viable and desirable" by the cultural-precinct planning process. (That's the trickiest.)
Number three is tricky because the whole concept of a "cultural precinct" has morphed a lot in the past year. Last April, the premier's office announced an impending "cultural precinct" championed by architect Bing Thom. Since then, Thom's original vision for a more decentralized collection of smaller institutions has been replaced with a focus on that two-block lot.
What concerns Thom is that a single cultural facility might end up grabbing the lion's share of the site, the public attention, and the funding. That facility, by the way, would be the Vancouver Art Gallery, whose ambitious, high-powered director is Kathleen Bartels.
Nothing's confirmed yet, say insiders, but momentum is building for an international design competition to design a brand-new, high-budget and spectacular VAG. (The rest of the lot will be filled in with a revamped QE Theatre, a government office tower and a handful of other cultural facilities. In the running, among others, are the National Aboriginal Art Gallery, Coal Harbour Arts Complex and the Asia-Pacific Museum of Trade and Culture.
Thom: Vancouver's different
Thom is still an aspiring participant in the new vision, but if the future VAG building is likely to be the centrepiece of the lot, it might end up shoving aside smaller institutions that would provide a broader cultural diversity for the area.
Thom worries that civic culture is sliding into the control of a few select, giant institutions that grab a dominant share of publicity and public money. He argues that as Vancouver grows, it is in danger of mimicking other North American metropolises in adopting the same dominant assumptions of what constitutes important culture: opera, symphony, art gallery.
But Vancouver culture is unique, argues Thom. For example, it's more informed by First Nations and Eastern Asian values than other metropolises, so we shouldn't necessarily adopt an a eye-stopping, starchitect-designed grand projet. The federal government maxes out its grants to cultural facilities at $30-million per institution; Thom wants the pie to be carved up in as many pieces as possible.
Who owns the VAG?
But if the power structure determines the program, and the VAG is the centrepiece project, we're in for some convoluted dealings, for the power structure of the VAG itself is a labyrinth.
The VAG's legal status is that of a charitable institution, not "owned" by anyone but rather existing for the benefit of others.
The actual building itself, though, is owned and managed by the City of Vancouver. But it currently sits on land owned by the provincial government (the onetime Supreme Court of B.C. -- which, in a stroke of irony, might end up housing the National Aboriginal Art Gallery). The VAG Board of Governors -- comprised mainly of A-list entrepreneurs -- decide the big stuff: which director to hire, whether to search for a new home and where that home should be.
When the top show dogs of government, culture and the private sector mix it up, there's almost inevitably some inbreeding.
Complicating things further is that Ken Dobell, who has served as right-hand man to Campbell since his Vancouver mayoral stint, is now being chided by NDP leader Carole James for double-dipping. He remains Campbell's paid advisor while simultaneously on the payroll of the city to lobby the province to help implement the cultural precinct.
In this web of stakeholders, there's one voice missing from the picture thus far: that of the Vancouver general public. The sole mention of public process in the city council report is a vague bureaucratic one-liner: "The Cultural Facilities Priority Plan will be developed through the Creative City Task Force public consultation." But it doesn't say when, where and how.
How much public say?
Architect Joost Bakker, whose firm Hotson Bakker Boniface Haden is reconfiguring the CBC block next door, knows a lot about public process. If a competition is in the works, says Bakker, the specifics of public need have to be woven into the terms of reference before the competition is even established.
"You have to respect there is a power structure," he says, "but should the power structure then represent what the detailed program becomes?"
That is: the basic size, program and urban context should be informed, if not wholly determined, by public need and consultation. "It's ironic for an architect to be saying this, but we're putting the building first," says Thom. "We should get the ideas rolling, and then think about what kind of building we want."
Officials at both the VAG and the city reply that it's just too early to say anything to the public about the in-camera mudwrestling for the cultural precinct. They have a point: complex negotiations would melt under the klieg lights of a public free-for-all, and we do pay our community leaders to lead.
But should the public have a say on the basic shape and content of the cultural landscape -- or is that best left to the politicians, bureaucrats, cultural leaders and private donors to wrestle over? To make a megaproject both viable and desirable is no mean feat.
"What constitutes the public is a complicated question," notes Matthew Teitelbaum, director of the Art Gallery of Ontario, in a telephone interview with The Tyee. "Is it our neighbours? Our 55,000 members? The international art community?"
'You can compromise boldness'
Teitelbaum is currently stickhandling Frank Gehry's ambitious expansion of his gallery, and a long, multilayered public-consultation process was part of the package. But the decision to expand and the choice of Gehry as architect was their own, made from their vantage point as cultural leaders.
"Our obligations are surely to our neighbours, but also to people who are connected to this international art institution and who want it to grow," says Teitelbaum. "The big knock against community-based input is that you can compromise an architect's boldness."
Public input can result in offensively inoffensive design-by-committee. Dream City author Lance Berelowitz echoes that view: "If you just ask the public, you get the full spectrum of an uninformed straw poll." Best, it seems, is to have cultural and political leaders lead--but have checks and balances to make sure they acknowledge the greater public good.
In this reporter's own straw poll, a few respondents snorted at the thought of a government office in a cultural precinct. But however irksome our government might be, we need more people actually working downtown, as opposed to sleeping, vacationing, and gallery-hopping there. Bring it on. Also, we'll need that money.
$300 million revamp
The redevelopment budget will likely be in the ballpark of $300 million, according to a city hall official. (The lot value alone is an estimated $50 million, adds the official.) In fact, the Coal Harbour Arts Complex and National Aboriginal Gallery are now underdogs for getting on that site, since by October they had failed to reach the fundraising criteria laid out by the city.
So now what happens? If city hall is to be believed, work will begin this spring to refurbish the QE Theatre. (Actually, it must begin in April to get finished by 2010, according to the council report.)
Also around that time there should be a splashy announcement of an international design competition for the Vancouver Art Gallery on that prized plot next to the Vancouver Public Library, the biggest-scale competition since the library itself.
Then be on your guard for what happens next. At the minimum, the city and the VAG should follow the lead of the Art Gallery of Ontario by implementing a bona-fide public process. And they should consider what the fabulous new VAG will do to street life, and to its neighbours. Downtown Vancouver, with its view corridors and bumptious culture, is nothing like the site of Frank Gehry's Bilbao Guggenheim, and big cities attempt to replicate the Bilbao effect at their peril.
A huge, separate, standalone building -- no matter how artsy the function or how famous the architect -- would be bad news for street life in that area of downtown, says Joost Bakker. The area is already home to too many disconnected monoliths, which deaden pedestrian activity. (His firm master-planned the very public and very successful Granville Island.)
"What's really important is that we have great art," says Bakker, who himself is on the board of the Contemporary Art Gallery. "Having great art does not necessarily equate to having a huge monument."
Architect left in the dark
Vancouver's most prominent, VAG-connected artists tend to support the Bartels vision, not surprisingly; and, by all accounts, Bartels herself is brilliant, tireless, well connected, and most likely to pull in the big donor bucks. What unsettles the skeptics is whether our city's architecture and cultural manifestation should be swayed to such an extent by a single individual and institution.
For such a momentous and expensive and very public project, the process has been left to ferment -- or languish -- behind closed doors. Even the architects are occasionally left in the lurch.
Michael Maltzan, a prominent California architect hired to design alternatives for the VAG to expand on its current site, presented his findings to Director Bartels, and was then dropped like a stone. In fact, this reporter's phone call was the first news to Maltzan that the VAG had decided to expand on a new site instead.
The firm the VAG hired to handle the search for its new site, Henriquez Partners, is appropriately tight-lipped on the proceedings.
Thom, for his part, shows no reluctance to speak his mind: "This is the most important city block we have left," he warns. "It's a tremendous opportunity to be an incubator for small groups. We have to look at it very carefully."
Related Tyee articles:
- Lance Berelowitz: A Clear View of Vancouver
- Brian Jungen: Aboriginal Art Turned Inside Out
- Dennis Law Breaches Culture's Borders
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Fiat lux
5 years ago
I can remember when the QET
I can remember when the QET side was a row of ramshackle houses and, although I haven't been to Vancouver for 18 years, and never want to see the place again, being an artist, the VAG question is near to my heart.
Wondering when the acronym PPP will start flying, brainwashing the public with the fraud of "lower costs to the taxpayer", without mentioning that on the long run, private financing will cost the taxpayers far more.
This is obvious, so, how can politicians still get away with the promotion of such transparent lie ? How long will it take for the public to realize that so called "investors" never BRING anything, because their purpose it to TAKE.
Ed Deak.
BC Mary
5 years ago
What about BCPlace?
There's an adjoining piece of prime land which will undoubtedly be available soon, when the Flying Fibreglass Fiasco once again collapses on BCPlace.
Of has that land been earmarked for private, friendly developers?
Sam Salmon
5 years ago
"A huge, separate,
"A huge, separate, standalone building -- no matter how artsy the function or how famous the architect -- would be bad news for street life in that area of downtown, says Joost Bakker. "
I trust this will all be a disaster of Brobdingnagian proportions-as per SOP in this backwater.
mjf
5 years ago
Let us keep our fingers
Let us keep our fingers crossed that the process will yield a better result than the cheesy fake Roman coliseum design that was selected for the Vancouver Public Library.
freebc
5 years ago
Hands out Vancouver...we still might have some tax payers left!
Here we go again!!!
Vancouver with it's ruddy hands out again.
$300M for an ART GALLERY???? You have to be kidding!!!!!!
Who the hell do you people think you are? Screw off! Out here in the hurt lands we are trying to stay alive.
Prince George which serves the entire north part of the province, still doesn't have a cancer clinic. Forcing people from as far away as Ft. St. John and Ft. Nelson in the north and east and Prince Rupert and all points between, to tavel hundreds of MILES to get treatment. Some illnesses require huge burdens to be placed on patients and their families because jerks like those artsie farts in Vancouver continually line up for more money for nothing.
Dammit! For just once, IF YOU WANT SOMETHING JUST FOR YOU WHO LIVE IN THE GVRD...You pay for it for a change.
$40.00 per home and business for 10 years, you own it and paid for it all by yourselves. Wouldn't that be something to be proud of?
Go see if you can jack up Jimmy or Telus for something like this. Get outa our pockets so that we can live!!!
Stump
5 years ago
Call me un-cultured
but I like the library. I like the way people sit on the steps in the sunshine, populate the atrium in the rain, and use it as a public space. Maybe that has little to do with the architecture, but it's clearly inviting enough that people use it. Can't say the same for Robson Square which is almost always empty when I've been there.
gmgw
5 years ago
Something to think about...
Interesting side issue in connection with this one, which I've yet to see anyone raise: If the VAG does vacate their current premises in the old courthouse, what becomes of the building? Poof: Instant white elephant. What other purpose could it serve? I'd be willing to lay even money that the developer vultures are already circling. I can just see someone like Peter Wall proposing to build "Vancouver's ultimate luxury condo/hotel tower" or suchlike on the site (naturally it would have to be taller than the Shangri-La a couple of blocks west or the slimjim behemoth going in behind the Hotel Georgia across the street). Since heritage designation means nothing in this town (if the right developer came along with the right offer, even the Marine Building would be rubble within a month), the question heritage advocates in this town should already be asking themselves is: Can the old courthouse be saved, and would it be worth the struggle? For anyone who answered "yes" to those questions, the time to start sharpening your weapons is now.
DNA
5 years ago
The Library and the Public Process
I too like the library because it's used by lots of people. Maybe the design could have been less grandiose and coliseum-like, which offends so many critics, but the building works in so many ways. I think that's because there is a good connection between inside and outside... both the north and south entrances... which is not true of, say, most of Erickson's work (Robson Square, the VAG renovation). And it's the design people voted for, you may recall. Bakker is right... making the street life of the architecture work is the most important thing. What we definitely _don't_ need is a gaudy Gehry/Bartels massive monument!
Grumpy
5 years ago
OMG they are at it again!
You know, when is the Vancouver taxpayer going to pay for their edifices? The region is subsiding RAV for almost $2 billion (up front) and another $5 billion for the next 40 years, while a perfectly good rapid transit line goes begging because the West side types don't want LRT.
The Feds and prov. governments are giving Vancouver several millions because Stanley Park suffered from wind storm. Hey guys, my willow blew down and it cost $2,800 to remove it and no one from my city or province offered to pay.
What ever happens in Vancouver, one thing will be sure, it will be tacky and Vancouver will come cap in hand wanting others to pay for it.
alive
5 years ago
never ending
One more status symbol for the important "creme de la creme" segment of the population?
Of course eventually no ordinary citizen will be living near Vancouver anyway, or be able to afford to attend any event in such facilities.
Tying this in with the 2010 is just another way to make the olympics expensive without admitting the true cost!
darcy.mcgee
5 years ago
Incorrect use of word...
How is this ironic?
The definition is:
the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning: the irony of her reply, “How nice!” when I said I had to work all weekend.
freebc
5 years ago
bold tag
That's ME. I am to blame for that.
I tried to close it but my html coding is marginal at best.
But my ire towards Vancouver and all of it's thinking that it's all that is working just fine.
In the GVRD, if you want something...pay for it yourself. Take it to a referendum and see if the folks who live in the lower mainland want to pay for it.
It's like that stupid 2010 thing. How much do we have to pay for all that?
DJT
5 years ago
"freebc" says "Go see if you
"freebc" says "Go see if you can jack up Jimmy or Telus for something like this". Somebody in the provincial government may be on the phone to Jimmy as we speak, urging him to "get the ball rolling" once again. Maybe CanWest will jump in with a telethon.! Maybe they can auction off front row seats to watch as drooling developers duke it out! Offload, offload, offload!!
Sadly, many a true thing was said in jest.
van-island
5 years ago
Will we never learn...
What has it been now, 40 years since Jane Jacobs published "Death and Life of Great American Cities"? And still we have learned nothing.
A huge arts complex will be like the financial district in Manhattan - huge crowds at certain times, but due to a lack of mixed uses, long periods when the "complex" or whatever is a ghost town. Rather than place various venues at various locations throughout the city and spreading out the crowds and generating diversity in neighbourhoods, here we are again creating one huge "grand complex" - due for failure as so many before it.
At least the homeless will have somewhere new to go during the off hours.
yourleader
5 years ago
art spaces can be a good thing
I completely agree with the Erickson-designed Robson Square being a vacant hangout spot. The look is not the problem; it is its functionality and how it proves useful to its neighbouring buildings and frequent pedestrians. What a shame for so much thought, space and money to prove itself as little more than eye-catching.
As an artist and a supporter of art I believe in great structures that can landmark cities in unique ways. Although Monolithic structures like the Eiffel Tower or the Leaning Tower of Pisa are more eye candy than anything else their presence is a visual summary of why these cities prove themselves to be significant cultural communities. These sites - whether or not people will pay admission to see them up close - help draw people to these cities.
That being said sites like the CN Tower and the Space Needle have proven themselves to be nothing but ego-tripping tourist traps. I prefer functional art like Jameson Foster's rocket building in London, where commerce meets the arts in such a perfect marriage. We need more of those spaces in our city where business thrives on the inside while we marvel its design and functionality from outside. We need a good reason to commune together in these public art spaces. And we definitely need to wake our sleeping community to provide input and say in what does and doesn't get built in our city.
Vancouver is still a very new city with a lot to prove. Our arts and culture are pretty void in comparison to other metropolitan cities, and I do not see this project as a turning point for us. It sounds like an idea to expand square footage of existing centres and not expanding opportunities for new art to break through. If this is true we will always be museum territory for our Batemans and Carrs, keeping our art abundantly stale. This vast sum of money could do so much more than it probably will be used for.
On another note I agree with non-Vancourites that we take way too much money from taxpayers that will never reap the benefits of our spendings. Airports and other necessities aside, we get a lot of money to spend on frivolous things. And we should pay for these things ourselves (the GVRD, that is).
benbrown
5 years ago
Incubator for small groups
I do understand the inclusion of government offices on site. Not only will they provide jobs downtown, they are probably part of the deal/trade-off for government financial contributions.
I'd like to hear more ideas from Thom and others about how this area could be an incubator for small groups. I'd like to see studio space (including live-in) and social housing and maybe even a little market housing included so that this relatively large site is 'alive' 24 hours a day. And how about some flex-space for small performances, meetings, readings, etc. and to accomodate the fact that some of these small groups will die off and new ones will form to take their place.
We also need to remember that an arts district will attract related businesses and organizations to the surrounding area making the 'district' larger than the official plans. Or at least that's what would normally happen. The high cost of real estate may prevent such a scenario in Vancouver.
freebc
5 years ago
Art spaces...
It's nice for you to have some venue for your three stripes for some millions definition of art.
But you freaks need to get a life and a job.
You enjoy art. Dandy. Hang it on the wall of your house that you own yourself. In the event that someone decides that the world needs new decorations, let it be on some bare bones square structure that you guys can decorate on your nickel. Otherwise call the little pukes with the spray cans. They have something to offer.
Do I come across as not giving a damn about art???
Skookum1
5 years ago
Quote:The city, province and
In other words, a contrived, regulated, totally designed environment that has no dynanism other than maybe some fist-pounding in architects' and bureacrats' boardrooms. Like everything else in BC, "culture" and an "arts district" are being pursued with all the passion that bureaucrats and marketing hypesters can summon, and it's a megaproject that's in the works. Not a series of zonings to encourage a swarm of small live theatres and small live music/performance spaces and live-ins (like used to be...) but instead a revamp of an already institutionally-designed part of downtown into something even more institutionally-contrived. With the usual coterie of ethno-political agendas lining up to feed at the spending trough, and a share in the profile/image-making:
Yeah, and it's also informed by Europeans-from-Europe, too, but they're not the ethnic flavours of the month; it's as if the only cultures in this city that matter to planners and the professional intelligentsia - as told to them by their market research types, no doubt - are the First Nations and Asian cultures, and everyone else is into the dustbin of local history, we're still so uncomfortable with being proud of our very British heritage (despite being enamoured of Rattenbury's VAG, which was a product of it) that we can't even acknowledge the dynamic role of Europeans as a group; we're told we should look to Kispiox and Skedans, or to Beijing and Tokyo, for inspiration, that it would be improper to do otherwise, apparently in order to make up or atone for the past (and a largely mythical, completely distorted version of the past at that!).
But who's already in the running for some of the planning consideratoins and largesse involved in this pre-Olympics spending spree on "culture":
Mm-hm. No doubt. And the pressure will be on for the new main complex to "express the unique cultural diversity" of Vancouver, so instead of a faux-Roman Coliseum we get a faux-Forbidden City pagoda, crossed with a native longhouse? Turning a blind eye and a cold back on all but two of the now-powerful ethnic groups here, and in fact entrenching an ethnic agenda in the city's culture, when it's supposed to have transcended ethnic boundaries.
My read on all this is just another newer, swankier facility than the QE, Chan or Orpheum, for the tiara-and-fur crowd to point to as proof that Vancouver "has culture", and for architects and funded-culture mavens to have something to show off their wares in. Ordinary artists aren't part of the equation; they may talk like they are, but it never works out that way (which is, among other things, why it's hard to find one of those specialty-zone "artists live/work" places that allows musicians).
More big halls, more fancy lobbies, more spending on what will no doubt be very tasteless by also critically-acclaimed architecture. And the spaces created will not be available for the emergence of thriving independent art/performance, but for the use of the entrenched organizations who threw themselves into the planning, and will expect their share of booking rights, too.
Culture? For this city to have culture, it needs to loosen its liquor and dining and patio laws re live music, and to license, even tax-break, more theatre space, and also work to ensure affordable studio and workspace isn't swept up by Ryerson design grads who can afford to convert to condo, or shell out the 2-300k for an "artists live-work studio". You don't "make culture" by building big state theatres and complexes. You make a lot of rich architects that way, and make a lot of proud looks on sponsors' faces, as well as noxious building names with corporate branding splashed all over them. But you don't "make culture".
Culture? You're supposed to let it happen, not systematically squash it...or, in the case of funded programs, alternatively cultivate it and stunt it like a carefully-contrived ''bonsai'' tree that pleases all the p.c. parameters and particular ethnic agendas in vogue at the moment....
Stump
5 years ago
Frankly my dear....
You certainly come across as thinking that art is pointless outside of the private sphere and that we might be interested in your opinion on the subject.
It would suck to be wrong on both counts huh?
freebc
5 years ago
Frankly...
I guess that knife cuts both way huh?
And you are right. I don't give a damn about paint splatters on a canvas unless I'm watching CSI.
I cannot see the value, and I find it insulting that I, way up here in the frozen interior, should have to contribute even one cent to something that is only for the good of those that live there or actually have a desire to spend more than the time needed to pass through Vancouver.
If your junk is worth as much as YOU seem to think it does, sell a couple pieces and get your name on some brick to say that you are REALLY some kinda hot shot. Ooooh! A painting. What do you suppose it means? You get to pay through the nose for it. That's what!
Stump
5 years ago
CSI LOL
You do realize of course that programs like CSI also get some public funding, through government subsidies to broadcasters?
Even though it's an American programme, the monies given to Canadian broadcasters to foster local and indigenous programming help defray the costs of said programming, giving the networks more money to spend on buying American and international product.
So, I won't begrudge you your public 'art'... although it does nothing for me, and perhaps you could find a small measure of tolerance in your heart for the diversions and inspirations that move others?
Whether or not we need another building to house art in YVR is definitely another issue.
Stump
5 years ago
one other thing
OK, two, and then I'll shut up (I doubt if my opinions on the subject are THAT fascinating).
freebc, I'm wondering if you would think it's the government's responsibility to ensure that ancient artistic endeavours such as petroglyphs, cave paintings, totems etc are protected to some degree?
Further, I wondering that if so, why you would begrudge keeping art of a more recent creation somewhere safe and letting people have reasonable access to enjoy it.
After all, if you find no value in art then of course you will see no need to house it somewhere, but if you believe that art has a function in our society I'm having trouble understanding why you wouldn't want everyone to enjoy it?
And, if you find no value in art I would suggest you are in a very small minority.
OK, that was slightly more than two things. :-)
stegosaurus
5 years ago
public space downtown
Lost in this discussion is that what Vancouver is really missing downtown is a large open gathering place, such as is found in almost every other city in the world of this size. If there are serious intentions to redevelop these blocks, instead of grandiose edifices how about a true public space?
Cheap (for the justifiable complaints from out of town), useful, could have art showings, performances on temporary stages, public markets (huge demand for local food), etc., etc.
I love art, music, and cultural activities of many kinds, but we don't need to put it in another big building.
freebc
5 years ago
Stump
What I am objecting to is vancouver (GVRD certainly but city especially) continually picking the taxpayer's of BC's pockets all the time.
There's been adisaster with the storms. BC Place lost it's roof. I didn't know that the provincial gov't (us) owned the damn thing. But we have to pony up a few million for a thing most people outside the GVRD have never been in.
Stanley park takes one on the chin. Vancouver gets Jimmy, Global and Telus to do a telethon. Good. Vancouver whines and who comes a runnin'? Gordo. huff puff pant wheeze...he was on holidays puff puff...but here's money. What? A couple million more? No big deal.
Rav is going over budget...No big deal...BC taxpayers to the rescue.
2010. There's gonna be a money maker! Oh It's not gonna be a money maker? Oh, I see. At least Vancouver get to pay the overage. BC taxpayers have already paid their share! Oh that's not happening either. BC Taxpayers bail 2010 out and make Vancouver look good.
And now you want $300,000,000 for some nice place to hang someone's finger painting??? No. No more stuff Vancouver. Go to hell. Have an earth quake or something. Get out of our pockets.
And stump. It don't cost $300M to build a little roof over a petroglyph, an' I knows wut wun iz evun if ah iz from the woodz.
freebc
5 years ago
stegosuarus
Steg, quite correct. Want something nice for folks to sit in? Cool. It doesn't have to be expensive and it can be very functional.
Here in Vanderhoof, there has been a move to try and get a band shell/outdoor stage built in a local park.
I would love the idea. Do I expect BC taxpayer money for this? No.
It would be nice for Prince George to get the long dangled carrot of a cancer treatment facility so that our friend's and family can be treated closer to home.
It would be nice if Hwy16 could have the long touted widening it needs to handle the truck traffic that passes through our towns each day, so that our children might be a tad safer when walking at the edge of the road.
All of these things are important to us. I could see the open hand from the GVRD over hospital funding. That's everywhere, and I understand and could amost go with that. But my God ... Does it ever end with you people?
Skookum1
5 years ago
to stegosaurus - open space downtown
Actually, there's lots of them; you're just not allowed to do anything on any of them, not without a booking and usually some kind of organizational momentum behind you; the Plaza of Nations seemed the busiest, but that "marvel of architecture" is now rotting in its spaceframes and having to be torn down (yay, Expo legacy! - funny it happened at the same time as the imploson of the BC Balloon, huh?). But you couldn't just set up shop hang out there grooving, anyway, and it's not really an ambient space in the way a piazza or zocalo or Hofplatz is.
Yet Vancouver has lots of big open spaces - the BC Place plazas, the VAG "front" door plaza towards Georgia, Granville Square plaza. But guess what? They're all private property, even BC Place; you can't set up and, say, busk or juggle, or set up an easel with paintings or photos. Not without a permit from the company, and likely also from the city. And the parks are verboten, short of the painters who brave by-law enforcers.
Then there's the smaller spaces; on Burrard, just between Robson and Smithe, there's a small plaza where FedEx is, or was, in between Don Federico and the "Java by Day, Martini by Night" place; no tables, no expansion for either restaurant possible, no public performance space (which it's ideal for, given there's nobody upstairs after 6), just a cold, empty plaza.
There's more - the front of the QE, Library Square, parts of the CBC Plaza, even Roundhouse Plaza, which was supposedly designed for "community cultural events" (meaning, loosely, that you have to belong to a "community" in order to be allowed to use it unencumbered, and again there'll be all that paperwork). The city goes to great lengths to force tower-builders to dedicate "public space" around their buildilngs; which is then designed to be so-unamenable that nobody even thinks of asking to use it; and if they do, it'll be "no, we can't have that. It's private property and might degrade property values". Which might explain why the drab box of Tourism Vancouver has replaced the old sweeping-arms metal sculpture and associated bandstand at Granville and Georgia (there's still music there sometimes, but only "safe" or "multicultural", as is also the case with the Courthouse Plaza/VAG/fountain area....)
Stump
5 years ago
freebc
And I've never been on Hwy 16... why should I help pay to widen it?
The "what's in it for me" game is easy to play, but unfortunately, no one wins.
Stump
5 years ago
If it walks like a Philistine...
Lemme guess, you don't know art, but you know what you like, right?
Seriously though, has it occurred to you that your dismissive attitude towards a human activity that predates the alphabet might be colouring your attitude towards preserving and displaying its results?
realisticman
5 years ago
"You can lead a horticulture...
... but you can't make her think". attributed to Dorothy Parker.
freebc, you should be pleased that the provincial government owns BC Place. If they were to sell the land the return on investment would be substantial; and it's your money.
The Prince George Regional Hospital has recently undergone extensive expansion and there have been discussions and consultations regarding a cancer-care facility in Prince George.
If there is an investment in an arts district it will be partly be because cultural tourism is recognized as the most lucrative kind and the more wealthy tourists coming to BC, the more funds for roads in the interior, etc.
This could be good for Vancouver and for BC. Joost Bakker's architectural firm did wonders for Granville Island. Who could say that was not a good investment?
freebc
5 years ago
Who really is paying?
"And I've never been on Hwy 16... why should I help pay to widen it?"
Well dickhead, I would say that you might want to consider paying a piece for it because the revenue collected by the BC government off of this little gem is part of what you worthless leeches here in lotus land suck up.
Vancouver is a net consumer of tax revenue. NOT A PAYOR!
As I said earlier, I could almost understand begging for health care money. But for a place to hang your finger paint projects? Screw you! There is a place for art. I don't know where it is personally, but I'm still sure there is a place for it where some other moron can appreciate it. I don't. And I find it offensive when moronic artsie twits place their 'stuff' ahead of human lives.
freebc
5 years ago
PGRH
"The Prince George Regional Hospital has recently undergone extensive expansion and there have been discussions and consultations regarding a cancer-care facility in Prince George."
Yes PGRH did have a revitalisation if you want to call it that.
Today I picked up my daughter from that hospital after some day surgery. They don't have a wheel chair you can just plunk her into and go. Nope. You gotta have a loonie to be able to get a wheel chair now.
As for talk of a cancer clinic, the people of northern Vancouver Island can tell you about talk. The North Island Highway took YEARS to get a definate approval for.
And in Port Hardy they have a little wedged shaped park they call CARROT PARK. They call it that in honour of finally getting the carrot of the highway north.
This is one of those things that will never come north because we swing left and right too much. We keep pinning our hopes on the wrong horse. We keep getting it up the butt by Vancouver mayors.
Vancouver, you are collection of selfish whiney bastards and someone needs to tell you NO!
freebc
5 years ago
tourists helping who?
"If there is an investment in an arts district it will be partly be because cultural tourism is recognized as the most lucrative kind and the more wealthy tourists coming to BC, the more funds for roads in the interior, etc."
Who will cultural tourists help?
You don't have any proof that the money comes north in any amounts to make what you artsie farts think is worth having.
As I have said. If your finger paintings are worth as much as you seem to think they are, dammit call one of those fancy auction outfits in Brittian and sell enough to pay for your own art palace.
Stump
5 years ago
have you considered art therapy
It might calm those frayed nerves.
Stump
5 years ago
By the way
You do realize that according to the article that nowhere does it say that taxpayers will be on the hook for the full (estimated) budget of $300m... and that $50m of that cost is the land value (already owned by the city).
Not that we should let the facts get in the way of city-bashing. :-)
realisticman
5 years ago
Expose yourself to art
# Tourism generated $9.8 billion in revenues in 2005. The goal is to double this amount over the next decade.
# Tourism accounts for more than 117,500 direct jobs in British Columbia, representing 1 in every 14 jobs in the province. When you include indirect tourism employment this number swells to 266,000 almost 1 out of every 8 jobs in the province.
* Tourism is an export industry. It is the second largest earner of export income for the provincial economy, after Wood Products. Foreign visitors travel to BC to purchase the product - the BC tourism experience. The money they spend exceeds the amounts brought into the province by other export industries such as oil and gas, mining, agriculture and fisheries.
Cultural Tourists: A Growing Segment of the Travel Market
An increasing number of visitors is comprised of special interest travelers who rank the arts, heritage and/or other cultural activities as one of the top five reasons for traveling.
Cultural Tourism Benefits
Whether through a visit to a museum, an arts festival, a heritage area, a performance or an historic building, authentic cultural attractions educate, elevate and entertain travelers nationwide.
Perhaps you should do some finger-painting freebc. The gigantic new facilities will need new fresh expressionist, if that's your category, 'works'. BC artists will probably be favourably considered. You know, guilt and all that. Painting might be good therapy for you and it might give us all a giggle. Nothing better than smiling happy gawkers. Will you be using only your middle finger?
freebc
5 years ago
Tourism accounts for more
Tourism accounts for more than 117,500 direct jobs in British Columbia, representing 1 in every 14 jobs in the province.
Bull. Those jobs are all in the lower mainland and Victoria. They do not benefit out side of that area.
Pay for your own crap and don't even bother to think about seeking Provincial money you thieving leeches.
Why don't you just have a little research and just see where tax dollars come from? If it weren't for the sparsely populated hurt lands where tax revenue is generated in the first place, you people would have nothing.
Stump
5 years ago
taxation
I've done some cursory searches for information on the tax split between urban and rural and come up dry. Where would you send me (on-line if its available please) to get this information?
G West
5 years ago
This should help Stump
http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/data/bus_stat/busind/tourism/timcurr.pdf
freebc
5 years ago
yer finger paintin' gallery
You do realize that according to the article that nowhere does it say that taxpayers will be on the hook for the full (estimated) budget of $300m... and that $50m of that cost is the land value (already owned by the city).
Stump, I never said that we should be on the hook for ALL of it. I am suggesting that we in the hurt lands of BC shouldn't be on the hook for ANY of it.
What I am simply saying is...PAY FOR IT ALL YOURSELF!!!
I am fully in favour of you also paying entirely for it's upkeep too BTW...
realisticman
5 years ago
NIMBY
So, I guess you won't want any inclusion of brochures showing the beauty of the Nechako and the rest of the heartland to be featured at the tourist kiosk. Even though tourism is growing there at 15%?
freebc
5 years ago
Be realisticman
So, I guess you won't want any inclusion of brochures showing the beauty of the Nechako and the rest of the heartland to be featured at the tourist kiosk. Even though tourism is growing there at 15%?
Not if it means the bloodsucking leeches in Vancouver expect provincial government funding for some stooooopid place for the artsie weiners to hang some finger paintings that my grandson can do equally well.
If you folks thing your art IS culture, this is not a difficult concept. PAY FOR EVERY PENNY OF IT ALL BY YOURSELVES!
If you can con the city fathers of the various GVRD communities to shell out for this kind of stupidity, go for it! In the mean time, Leave our money alone. The children of this province are already suffering because this province is drowning in debt. We lose ground every year because we have more debt to service.
Display the Nechako? No. Get out of our pockets.
realisticman
5 years ago
Debt
Yes, freebc, official statistics show that the provincial debt did grow by a whopping 50% during the disasterous NDP reign, between 1991 and 1996. Thankfully, it has stabilized now, under the Liberals. Thankfully too, under the Liberals the Prince George Hospital, and others, are seeing massive infrastructure improvements and expansions under the Liberals. This is good news, that I'm sure you celebrate, since it directly affects your family.
freebc
5 years ago
PGRH
Instead of something usefull and easy to get around in, the PGRH went all out to build something overly eye pleasing. The hospital is now harder than ever to find you way around in.
It is not a clean hospital. I cannot begin to count the number of infections in hospital generated wounds I've seen or heard about.
And more than anything it lacks diagnostic and treatment services which are common place items in most hospitals in central locations.
Prince George has been at the center of politics on this issue for a long time. And our premiers for the last while have all come out of Vancouver and as such you know what gets greased most often don't you? The GVRD.
Our cancer unit is going to be at Mt. Whistler in 2010 because it's Gordo's pet project to imortalize himself.
Didn't the Egyptian Pharohs try to do the same things?