Advocates seeking performing arts centre on list of capital projects
By Tim Kalinowski on April 30, 2021.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDtkalinowski@lethbridgeherald.com The possibility of constructing a new performing arts centre downtown was once again on city council’s radar as the Economic Standing Policy Committee heard from advocates seeking assurances their project would be on the council’s list of capital projects to be completed in the next 10 years.During Thursday’s committee meeting advocate Dianne King, who is a member of city council’s performing arts centre steering committee, pointed to the City’s own public plans dating back over the last 20 years identifying that the citizens of Lethbridge have long requested a new performing arts centre, including in its 2021 community survey used during the public consultation process for the City of Lethbridge’s new community master plan.
“It (the 2021 survey) captured that a performing arts facility is among the community’s top three priorities for new recreation and culture priorities,” emphasized King.
King said advocates for the performing arts centre realize given the economic circumstances of the moment it would be irresponsible of city council to commit to funding the $111 million dollar project in full, but hoped they could help push the project forward by retaining the performing arts centre as an approved project in the 10-year (2022-2032) CIP cycle. Council could also help foster the project, she stated, by setting aside a site location in the Civic Common (publicly owned lands near city hall) where the theatre will one day be built, and also by approving interim funding for a comprehensive site plan to get this chosen site in a position to be shovel ready when federal and provincial culture dollars once more become available.
“Our performing arts centre will serve Lethbridge and communities far and wide for the next 100 years,” said King. “We implore you to move this project forward. As visionary civic leaders it is up to you to ensure that a performing arts centre remains in the 2022 to 2032 CIP, and is ultimately built to meet the needs of audiences and performers. We must plant trees under whose shade we do not intend to sit.”
Coun. Jeffrey Carlson, who also sits on the steering committee, was asked by fellow Economic Standing Policy Committee members what kind of financial commitment against the $111 million project would be expected at this time?
Carlson said there was no specific monetary ask attached to the committee’s request to keep the performing arts centre in the upcoming 10-year CIP cycle as there were too many uncertainties surrounding grants for the project at the moment. He said the committee was asking, as King had stated, for a site for the new facility to be chosen and an approval in principle so committee members could return to council as necessary to make further financial requests as provincial or federal grants became available– similar to the arrangement council had with The Exhibition before the Kenney government decided last year to fund its conference centre project.
He acknowledged the committee would be seeking $900,000 in a separate CIP request for the completion of a comprehensive site plan in 2022 once council chose the location within the Civic Common where the performing arts centre would be built.
The Economic Standing Policy Committee received the report on the performing arts centre for information, and will forward the project on for closer consideration when council votes on its CIP priorities for 2022-2032 later this spring. Follow @@TimKalHerald on Twitter 4
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