A last opportunity for museum, CPR terminal

Recently, my family and I visited several historic sites in Canada and along the East Coast of the United States and one place in particular, Mystic Seaport at Mystic, Connecticut, was a highlight.

Here, a small city embraced its maritime heritage in the form of not only a museum, but a living, breathing representation of an 18th- to 19th-century New England seaport with all of its trappings in terms of historic vessels both large and small, shipyards, the trades that go along with them and the village itself, from churches to taverns.

The economic benefits are obvious when one visits and sees first-hand what cultural tourism entails. The seaport has annual revenues in excess of $27 million and it is estimated that for every dollar spent by the non-profit society that operates the historic attraction, three more dollars are generated for the local economy and for the state in terms of tax revenue, private-sector jobs and external service providers.

The maritime heritage of Victoria as a seaport and as the historic gateway to Canada’s West Coast rests in the collection of the Maritime Museum of B.C., and it belongs in a suitable long-term home on the water in Victoria, where it to can thrive and become a significant cultural draw and economic generator for our local economy.

The best short- and long-term solution, from the perspective of the maritime museum, remains the available space in the historic CPR Steamship Terminal Building, but the window for this space is rapidly closing as the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority moves toward completing the process to lease the space within the next few weeks.

Unfortunately, the last round of lease negotiations between the museum and the GVHA, with the province of B.C. negotiating on the museum’s behalf, stalled last spring when the province, namely the Ministry of Technology, Innovation and Citizens Services, withdrew its offer of providing a base rent subsidy for the Steamship space over 10 years. This would have cost less per year than the ministry, as our landlord, was paying for operating costs at the old 28 Bastion Square facility.

In addition, the museum was to come up with the money to do tenant improvements estimated at $1 million-plus for the rough space — as it is only a concrete shell at this stage. In this regard, and since the cessation of the last discussions and after sending in a significant grant application to the TK Foundation, which fosters initiatives around maritime education and heritage around the globe, we have been provided with a conditional offer of $500,000 in support for these costs.

These funds are conditional, primarily, on the museum successfully obtaining a long-term lease on the Steamship Building space and can also assist with other matching-grant funding that will support the improvements to the space and exhibit design and construction. With the announcement of the $500,000 in potential funding, the project has become a public-private partnership in the truest sense of the term.

What the museum needs at this stage is for the province to reengage in the project and reignite the previous offer of rent support, whether through the direct subsidy to the GVHA or by eliminating the need for rent on this particular portion of the Steamship Building completely. On this latter point, we must remind ourselves that this is a public building and that ultimately, if the museum were to pay rent, it would go to the provincial landlord, which is the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure. The lower the overhead, the more successful the cultural enterprise.

The board of the museum does remain committed to keeping the museum and its important collection in Victoria, and we applaud the efforts of the multitude of individuals and organizations that have directly supported us in this recent transitional phase, including the City of Victoria and the province of B.C. with the support for the move and for collection storage.

That said, a warehouse is not a museum. If we want to help the museum obtain a long-term lease on the Steamship space and become more self-sustaining and a significant economic generator, we will need the three key provincial ministries involved, including the Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development to work together, very soon, to move the process forward or this opportunity will be lost for decades to come.

The need for leadership on this issue is now.