Vancouver sees renewed push for three-theatre cultural precinct complex amid venue crunch
Vancouver Symphony Society secures city grant, as dance and music presenters voice needs and say securing local venues is harder than ever
A proposed complex would house an approximately 2,000-seat symphonic hall; an 800-seat chamber music recital hall; and a 1,200-seat hall with an orchestra pit, wings, and proscenium suitable for dance, ballet, and opera.
Vancouver Recital Society’s Leila Getz.
THE FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL OF B.C., Suzanne Anton, is putting her political skills behind a push to build a cultural precinct in Vancouver. Anton, who served as the Attorney General and Minister of Justice with the BC Liberals from 2013 to 2017, is vice-chair of the Vancouver Symphony Society, which recently received a $100,000 grant from the City of Vancouver for “collective community planning of a cultural precinct”.
“We will be applying federally and provincially for matching funds to do a feasibility study,” Anton told Stir by phone. “We’re confident that the need is there, but we need to document this. We need to have it properly looked at and documented, to assess the need for a concert hall in Vancouver, a recital hall, and an appropriate hall for the ballet and opera.”
The vision, still to be developed with the community, is for a complex of venues that would boast an approximately 2,000-seat symphonic hall; an 800-seat chamber music recital hall; and a 1,200-seat hall with an orchestra pit, wings, and proscenium suitable for dance, ballet, and opera. These would sit alongside community amenities such as restaurants and cafés.
“This is the first time since I’ve lived here and since I’ve worked in the arts that the music organizations and opera and dance have come together as one whole unit to fight for, to strive for the building of a cultural precinct,” said Leila Getz, artistic director of Vancouver Recital Society—one of several major Vancouver arts groups supporting the project.
The concept of a cultural precinct is not new for Vancouver. The idea has been kicked around by various city councils, societies, and arts groups for decades. In 1993, the city secured a site in Coal Harbour for an arts complex, along with $7.5 million from developer Marathon Realty in community amenity contributions. The arts complex was to be developed and operated by the Vancouver Concert Hall and Theatre Society (VCHTS), a nonprofit established by a consortium of presenters.
In 2003, that plan was eclipsed by the Province’s Vancouver Convention Centre Expansion Project, and Vancouver City Council agreed to release the City’s interest in the site to the Province, in exchange for a cash contribution of $10.6 million. In an email to Stir, Amber Sessions, senior communications specialist at the City of Vancouver, confirmed that the fund is now valued at $32 million.
Vancouver’s current offerings, including the Vancouver Playhouse, are not meeting the needs of some dance and music performances, say presenters.
The next kick at the can came in 2011, when the VCHTS, chaired by local businessman Ron Stern, unveiled a plan to repurpose the current Vancouver Art Gallery site into a 1,950-seat underground concert hall and 450-seat multipurpose theatre—complete with designs by architect Bing Thom and acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota. It was a bold vision, but one that ultimately failed to gain traction.
Now, Anton is hoping to get the long-beleaguered project back on course. Anton said that she and representatives from a number of local arts organizations have been working together to finally bring the dream of a cultural precinct to fruition.
“We have a robust collaboration of arts presenting groups….We have on-side the Vancouver Opera, Ballet BC, Vancouver Recital Society, DanceHouse, Early Music Vancouver, Chor Leoni, Vancouver Chamber Choir—and the reason we don’t have others is just because we haven’t quite talked to each other yet. But I’m very confident that people want to be part of this coalition,” Anton said. The group, she added, has met with a number of city officials: “We’ve met the mayor, we’ve met most of the councillors, we’ve met with federal officials, and we are starting meetings with provincial officials.” While the push is currently being led by the VSO’s board, Anton said the plan would be to hand the reins over, once again, to a revived VCHTS.
Getz told Stir by phone that she was impressed by Anton’s efforts so far. “She really has taken the reins on this….I think Suzanne is a dynamo and I think she’s the right person to lead the charge, and I’m very happy to be at the back pushing.”
Anton’s consultation would be yet one more in a long line of similar consultations—Getz estimated she’d seen “six or seven studies” about civic arts venues throughout her time as an arts presenter. “The recommendations went into somebody’s drawer somewhere, never to see the light of day again,” she added. But this time, she said she was feeling hopeful as Vancouver presenters have formed a united front.
A concept put forward by the Vancouver Concert Hall and Theatre Society in 2011, developed by Bing Thom Architects (now Revery Architecture). Image by Bing Thom Architects
In addition to providing acoustically superior venues for orchestral and chamber music, the complex’s proscenium hall would fill the gap in venues that can accommodate the needs of dance in a theatre size that is currently nonexistent in the city (1,200 seats).
“A symphonic concert hall can’t have a fly tower or a proscenium, because the acoustic properties are all wrong. And opera, ballet, dance, all need a proscenium hall,” explained Jim Smith, artistic and executive director of DanceHouse, in a Zoom call.
While his company has long held successful productions at the 668-seat Vancouver Playhouse, he notes that its design is not ideal: “In venues that are more conducive for dance, you would have significant wing space on both sides of the stage. You would have nothing but a curtain at the back that the audience would see, and then you’d have the same amount of the stage space behind the curtain to allow for things like changing of sets, props, and production personnel.”
In recent years, DanceHouse has staged some of its more intimate shows at SFU Woodward’s 440-seat Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre, in partnership with SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs. On May 29, however, SFU announced it was ending the programs as a result of financial strain across the university, leaving presenters concerned about access and rental costs of that theatre moving forward.
While the venues envisioned for a new cultural precinct would be much larger than those at the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, they would go a long way in freeing up space at current civic venues, which are in greater demand than ever. “There are way too many groups who are trying to get access to these theatres,” said Getz, noting that no group is given preference over dates when booking future seasons. “I cannot begin to tell you how many groups want access to the Playhouse….It’s absolutely impossible to put together a season of concerts with the situation the way it is.”
It’s a similar story with the Orpheum, according to Anton. “We [the VSO] are there for 40 weeks a year, and I’m told that it could be used for quite a bit more than that, and that if we weren’t there, there would be lots of users that would come in,” she shared. She noted that, rather than replacing aging facilities, a new set of theatres would enhance the options in the city, which regularly has groups such as Elektra Women’s Choir and Early Music Vancouver performing in churches, rather than performance halls.
“We just don’t have the facilities that people and organizations need,” said Anton. “We’ve got fabulous cultural institutions, and I would like to see, and I know this committee would like to see, those institutions have the very high-quality halls that they need to play in and to perform in.”
Of course, many more pieces of the puzzle need to fall into place to make this happen. Anton is hoping to get matching funds from the provincial and federal governments for her community consultation. After that, there’ll be the matter of finding the appropriate site in a city where land is in increasingly short supply. That would be followed by finding and hiring the right architect—and, no doubt, a massive fundraising effort for public and private funds to actually build the thing. But if there’s ever been a time that Vancouver needed some new venues, it’s now. 
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