After public campaign, Firehall Arts Centre wins City commitment to $10 million accessibility upgrades
Funds are earmarked for 2027-2030 Capital Plan, but historic theatre is hopeful they’ll flow in sooner
Photo by Sarah Race Photography
AFTER RALLYING AN email and phone-call campaign, the Firehall Arts Centre has secured a commitment from Vancouver City Council to fund accessibility improvements for people with disabilities.
Council voted unanimously that staff seek to allocate up to $10 million in the 2027-2030 Capital Plan for the renewal and expansion of the Firehall theatre. But it also directed staff to try to secure unused funds sooner “to begin work as quickly as possible this term” on the upgrades.
“Council affirms the important role of the Firehall Theatre in Vancouver’s arts scene and its value as a community asset, and recognizes that the Firehall Theatre is in need of renewal and upgrading to enable accessibility and to ensure its use for generations to come,” the motion reads.
As reported by Stir earlier this season, patrons and artists who use wheelchairs cannot enter the theatre entrance from the 117-year-old building’s box office, as it has stairs. Instead, they have to try to enter through a side door that does not accommodate most larger motorized chairs. A trip to the bathroom requires a Firehall staffer to roll the audience member across the stage at intermission and down a corridor past the dressing rooms. Proposed upgrades also include improvements to artist areas the Firehall says fall below industry standards.
The new commitment marks a bit of a turnaround from City Hall. At a meeting on June 26, the ABC-majority councillors denied a bid for $7 million accessibility upgrades in the City's Mid-term Capital Plan, by 2026, instead offering a vague motion to reconsider the request in a few years. “To continue punting this down the road is embarrassing and incredibly disappointing,” Coun. Christine Boyle, who had put forward the motion, argued at the time.
More than 200 people had written letters of support before her motion failed. Afterwards, Firehall artistic producer Donna Spencer rallied the arts centre’s community to send even more emails and phonecalls to councillors.
“Thank you to the Mayor and City Councillors for recognizing the importance of this project and for addressing a problem that should have been dealt with many years ago,” Spencer wrote to supporters this week.
Spencer expressed hope that the city might find funds for the upgrades in the current Capital Plan, reassigning them from other projects that have not moved forward.
The Firehall Theatre Society has also committed to continue pursuing funding commitments from other levels of government for the project.
The new improvements would see an elevator installed at the courtyard end of the building, and the door into the theatre lowered to the box-office-entrance level. Spencer traces the Firehall’s first request for accessibility upgrades to the aging building back to 2009 and has been advocating ever since. As she said in today's letter to patrons: "Although the ground won’t be broken for some time yet, it is actually going to happen!" 
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