Current VAG site could attract suitors
If all goes well for the Vancouver Art Gallery in its quest for a new, bigger home, several other arts community players have expressed an interest in taking over the gallery’s old home in the remodelled courthouse building at Georgia and Hornby streets.
The best-case scenario for the gallery’s move would have construction starting in 2017 on a $350-million new building just east of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.
The gallery would move into the finished building in 2021, leaving the old courthouse free to be repurposed once again. But given that the gallery has raised just $73 million so far and has to come up with the rest of the construction tab from government, private and corporate sources, no one is packing their bags.
“It’s all been up in the air for quite a long time,” said Nancy Noble, chief executive of the Museum of Vancouver.
The museum is itself experiencing growing pains, sharing an 80,000-square-foot building at Vanier Park with the H.R. McMillan Planetarium.
Noble said the museum could use 120,000 square feet all to itself to house a collection of some 70,000 objects. As well, she said, the museum would get more traffic in a central downtown location, such as the art gallery’s Robson Square site.
“We still have an interest in it, but we’re waiting to see what happens,” Noble said.
“It’s going to be quite a few years before they vacate it.”
She said the heritage courthouse building, originally designed by Francis Rattenbury in 1906 and remodelled for the gallery by Arthur Erickson in 1983, has problems.
“As far as I know, it has in the past leaked. There are some structural issues with it. But from our point of view, the location is fantastic.”
The building is owned by the provincial government, which gave the city a 99-year lease that expires in 2079. A government spokesman said it’s the city’s call as to what to do next with the building.
Another scheme to repurpose the building came in 2011, with a proposal by Vancouver architect Bing Thom to build a 1,950-seat concert hall under the north plaza, while retaining the old building for other cultural uses. A smaller 450-seat theatre would be built in the courthouse annex.
Vancouver businessman Ron Stern, who still heads the Vancouver Concert Hall and Theatre Society formed to spearhead the project, was unavailable for comment Tuesday.