Design firm chosen for Niagara Falls’ new culture hub and farmers market
A new Niagara Falls cultural hub and farmers market is one step closer to reality after city council approved Toronto consulting firm DTAH as designers.
Now, the work begins on the “nuts and bolts” of the project, says Clark Bernat, the city’s manager of art, culture and museums.
“We’ll be working with some of the potential user groups to make sure that what decisions we make are also in step with how they envision using this space,” he says. “Lots of different potential and actual user groups that we want to be working with and make sure that we maximize the potential of this property.”
DTAH was originally hired as consultant for the project, and its familiarity with the project made it an easy choice as designers, says Bernat.
“We asked, in the contract, for two or three visuals to give us a sense of what it was going to look like,” he says. “We feel they took it way further than we ever anticipated, and gave us a really good vision of where we wanted to go.”
The project, to be located at the site of the current Sylvia Place Farmers Market behind Niagara Falls History Museum, will be a multi-use facility to accommodate public art, events, a market hall and work studio. It will also be the new home of the Niagara Falls Arts & Culture Wall of Fame.
It is the first major project stemming from the city’s cultural plan. Commissioned in 2013, it concluded Niagara Falls needs to spend between $200,000 and $300,000 more per year on arts and culture to compare with similar-sized communities.
Last year, Mayor Jim Diodati estimated the project will cost between $3 million and $5 million.
With the designers chosen, Bernat says the next glimpse the public sees of the project will be when it’s “very close” to its final design. The design phase is budgeted at $320,000.
The project is expected to begin construction in spring 2019, and open either late 2019 or early 2020.