The plush red seats are draped in plastic, workers are erecting the large replica sign and on the sidewalk a little mosaic welcome mat is being power vacuumed. The York Theatre, 100 years after it first opened, is preparing for another premiere – its own.
Most recently, the York was an abandoned, boarded-up movie house with mould growing on the seats and thousands of old film canisters stacked up behind the screen. It's set to reopen next week as a gleaming, if compact, 370-seat venue – a size of theatre desperately needed in this city.
"I'm still pinching myself," says Heather Redfern, executive director of The Cultch, which will operate the theatre. "I still can't quite believe it's going to happen."
The York Theatre is opening during what could be a cultural watershed moment for the Lower Mainland, at least in terms of bricks and mortar and, this being Vancouver, glass.
Several projects – including a possible new Vancouver Art Gallery, a new campus for the Emily Carr University of Art + Design, and a striking new waterfront home for Presentation House Gallery – have the potential to inject an massive infusion of cultural infrastructure into this no-fun city, where the arts have struggled for the spotlight in the shadow of the mountains and the ocean.
"There's something cooking here that's actually quite broad-based," says Emily Carr President Ron Burnett. "Something interesting is going on."
In Toronto, a cultural renaissance, as it's been called, was activated in 2002, when the federal and provincial governments announced more than $200-million in funding that resulted in six new, expanded or renovated facilities, including the Royal Ontario Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario, and a new opera house.
There's been no such funding catalyst here, but there have been some culture-friendly moves by municipal councils.
Vancouver's cultural infrastructure challenges have been a constant and worrisome theme storming around the arts. In recent years, excited discussions about a cultural precinct went silent. A plan to renovate the historic Pantages Theatre collapsed. The York Theatre was slated for the wrecking ball but saved, thanks in part to a passionate advocate Tom Durrie – and the city, which paid for most of it. Next Friday, Mr. Durrie will be in one of those red seats at the theatre's gala opening, and a sustainability fund for the York has been named for him.
The big cultural game-changer – although still a big question mark – is a potential new Vancouver Art Gallery.
Granted the land by the city, with conditions, to build a new facility, the VAG has received submissions from 75 architecture firms from 16 countries. Shortlisted candidates are to be informed early in the new year.
Gallery officials now have until the end of April 2015 to raise $150-million for the project from the provincial and federal governments, according to the city's conditions. While Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson has positioned himself as an advocate for the project, early indications from both Ottawa and Victoria have seemed less than positive that the money is forthcoming. Gallery director Kathleen Bartels has met with both ministers responsible this month and while the meetings weren't about the project specifically, she says the talks were "very positive."
If the VAG raises the funds for its new building – projected opening would be 2020 – a cultural domino effect would take place at its current home, which the city wants to remain a cultural facility. Among the interested parties: the Museum of Vancouver, UBC, and a group that wants to create an Asian Art Museum. And still, there is Bing Thom's delightful, audacious proposal to build an underground concert hall/theatre complex there.
It's been suggested that a VAG move east would reflect the eastward shift in the city – and by many of its artists. The new $134-million Emily Carr University campus on Great Northern Way speaks to that.
"I see it in the sense of bringing east and west together," says Dr. Burnett, whose university received $113-million in funding from the province for the campus this year. "So my perspective on it is here you have the east side, which is actually the centre of cultural activity in the city, beginning to manifest some real cultural institutions."
The move will further solidify the area as an arts district; there are a number of commercial galleries nearby – including Catriona Jeffries, Equinox Gallery, Monte Clark Gallery and Winsor Gallery in a stretch being branded The Flats.
Not far away in Southeast False Creek, a new performing arts production centre, recently approved by council, will be shared by the Arts Club Theatre and Bard on the Beach. It will include rehearsal spaces and a 250-seat theatre that will likely see Bard program a show outside of its traditional summer season, and will be open for other groups to use as well.
South on Main, Arrival Agency – as they've branded themselves since losing their gig programming the Waldorf Hotel – has support from the city to turn an old porn theatre into a live-event venue. The Fox Cabaret is slated to begin holding events in the new year as part of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. Next week, they'll be at City Hall with their liquor-licence application, which has been endorsed by city staff.
"It's going to be similar to the Waldorf: high quality, wide, expansive programming," says Arrival's Thomas Anselmi.
A Heritage report, triggered by the Waldorf earlier this year, has been rushed to council for next week, in response to the situation at the Hollywood Theatre on West Broadway, which advocates are trying to save as a cultural space.
It's not just the city of Vancouver proper that's poised for a cultural-infrastructure sea change. On the north shore, Presentation House Gallery is slated to move out of the old schoolhouse it currently occupies and down to the waterfront, into an eye-popping 22,632-square-foot building designed by Patkau Architects that will almost triple its exhibition space, and increase its exposure exponentially.
"We'll finally have a space that will be publicly accessible and that will provide the kind of profile [to match] the exhibitions that we're already doing here," says director/curator Reid Shier. "We're showing some of the world's best artists in a fairly dilapidated structure in an area of North Vancouver that sees absolutely no walk-by traffic."
Council has not yet given the building the green light, but it recently voted unanimously to allow the $15-million project to proceed to the next stage. If everything goes according to plan, it would open in 2016.
In West Vancouver, plans are continuing for a proposed 28,000-square-foot Centre for Art, Architecture + Design, with soil and environmental testing conducted this week. The proposed CAAD would become the new home for the exhibitions currently being programmed into the West Vancouver Museum, focusing on art, architecture and design in an area known for its rich West Coast Modernist history. "This will be something quite unique, so we hope to complement the other facilities," says CAAD co-chair Merla Beckerman, referring to Presentation House, the new VAG and the art museum philanthropist Michael Audain is building in Whistler.
In New Westminster, the Anvil Centre will open next year. It will house, among other things, a 364-seat performing-arts theatre, a new media digital art gallery, and the New Westminster Museum and Archives. In Surrey, there's a vision to build a large performing-arts facility in the city centre – although this project, if it goes ahead, is years away. In South Surrey, a smaller, 34,000-square-foot arts centre – including a 350-seat theatre and a visual-arts space – is being proposed as part of a development deal. Another public information meeting about the proposal will take place next week.
So many projects could mean stiff competition for limited fundraising dollars. But could there be some sort of fundraising synergy created too; an environment of giving where philanthropy begets more philanthropy?
"I think there are kind of historical moments when certain conversations take hold and maybe we're in one right now," says Mr. Shier. "Vancouver been lucky to have an extraordinary artistic environment, from the perspective of its artists for many years. It's not been lucky to have an extraordinary environment from the perspective of its visitors. So I think the city is due to have great places to see culture. And hopefully in another five years' time, we're looking back at this as being a real epic in what we're leaving as a legacy for generations to come."
Marsha Lederman