Smithers Council has three options on the table for the proposed BV Arts and Culture Centre.
The locations include configurations of a building that holds the Library, Museum and Visitors Centre in either Central Park or on the property of the current library. The CICK Radio station is also included in the plan.
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Consultants hired for a study of the project estimate it will cost over $16 million – above council’s $10 million thresholds.
The cost is based on a 33,678 square foot building at $400 per square foot. In a staff report, the consultants also say the estimates only include construction of the building.
Mayor Taylor Bachrach says the stakeholder groups of the project have ambitious plans.
“At some point, there has to be a bit of a reality check process so those plans are made into something that’s actually achievable,” says Bachrach. “The question of affordability is really one for the community. I think there’s costs and there’s value – sometimes those are slightly different concepts.”
Smithers Councillor Bill Goodacre has taken issue with the recent study of the project. He says none of the proposed options for the centre includes any serious Witsuwit’en presence.
“Especially when you use the word culture – well you’ve got a ten-thousand-year-old culture that has inhabited this territory – and to do a project like this and to not have them deeply involved is something I find disturbing,” says Goodacre.
“We’ve only been for a little over 100 years and we act like we’re the sole proprietors of the area – I (call) it the politics of exclusion.”
He thinks they should go back to the drawing board to further include the Office of the Wet’suwet’en.
Bachrach says the office has been consulted at every step of the way. However, calls for feast hall space in the proposed building didn’t make it into the design.
“Sometimes the ideas that are brought forward don’t fit within the scope of the project as it was originally concieved,” says Bachrach.
He says, if fact, there isn’t much ‘unprogrammed space’ in the presented options.
“I think this was an example where the project had quite a few constraints right from the start, and that makes out of the box thinking very difficult,” says Bachrach.
He says the intention was never to create space to accommodate activities but to create it for specific tennants.
Bachrach says the Office of the Wet’suwet’en “were consulted as an important community stakeholder because we want to make sure the project reflects the First Nations community.”
Council will now have to narrow down a pick of the three proposed options and locations. Bachrach says they’ll also be working on a business plan to look at how the project will be paid for.