Tuesday, February 25, 2020 ~ LANGFORD
by Mary P Brooke ~ West Shore Voice News
The City of Langford and the Maritime Museum of BC are entering into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the proposed construction of a state-of-the-art maritime museum, conference centre and theatre in Langford.
The agreement will be signed at an official ceremony in Langford at 5 pm on Tuesday February 25, 2020 at the City Centre Grill at 1089 Langford Parkway.
The new complex will be located at 790 McCallum Road where preliminary property development has already begun. That’s in the Millstream commercial district where CostCo and Home Depot parking lots will be accessible for overflow evening event parking.
This project has been long in the works by a number of proponents. The city’s engineering department has been laying the groundwork with roadworks and traffic signals on McCallum Road in the past year or so.
As part of this new rollout, the City of Langford has also launched a new marketing slogan “Langford: where it all happens”.
This is the first major development in Langford in a while that is not directly sports related. In fact, Langford Mayor Stew Young says this is phase three of Langford’s growth plan.
The first phase of Langford expansion was about increasing the population base through the development of housing in a range considered affordable (a momentum now firmly in place, interrupted only by a slow-down for a few years after the Great Recession hit in 2008). That was made possible by building up the commercial tax revenues by wooing big-box stores to Langford in the early 2000s. Commercial revenues increased from 3% in 1992 to now about 21%, which takes care of cash flow.
The second phase in Stew Young’s vision with his supportive council was the development of Langford into a national sports capital, through a broad range of local recreational facilities (including the YM/YWCA, ice rink, bowling alley, City Centre Park, walking trails, and various playgrounds) and enhancing Langford as a sports hub with high-profile sporting events at Bear Mountain and anchoring the Westhills Stadium with Pacific FC professional men’s soccer as well as Rugby Canada. There is also the longstanding Shamrocks Lacrosse team which operates out of the Q Centre at West Shore Parks and Recreation (of which Langford is one of five municipal owners). Mayor Young says the recreation phase cost Langford about $100 million, all-in.
Now it’s phase three which is all about arts and culture amenities and education facilities, which will be a $50 million investment overall for Langford, says Mayor Young. The rest of the substantial funding required for the many components of the new cultural district anchored by the Pacific Maritime Centre will be assembled as combinations of federal, provincial and regional funding as well as the commercial revenues from the office tower component of the new Pacific Maritime Centre development, on a project by project basis.
The combo of maritime museum, conference centre and performing arts theatre are the core components of the Pacific Maritime Centre with a Canadian maritime museum, an immersive planetarium theatre, an observational light-house design sky-deck, a 40,000 sq ft conference centre and a multi-story business tower which will be available for government or corporate offices.
The project will also include an adjoining state-of-the-art Performing Arts Theatre with about 1,200 seats with the goal of attracting world renowned Broadway shows together with providing other arts and culture experiences for Langford residents and youth.
The estimated cost to build the Pacific Maritime Centre is $57 million dollars, while the estimated cost to build the Performing Arts Theatre is $30 million dollars. It is anticipated that the project will be funded through fundraising, tenant lease agreements and federal government infrastructure programs.
“This project will create several new Canadian iconic attractions for the City and will further enhance our commitment for providing family-based entertainment, youth training initiatives, educational programming and exciting new public events that help support our local economy,” said Langford Mayor Stew Young.
Joining Mayor Young for a pre-event announcement at Langford’s oceanfront property at Finlayson Arm (up on the Malahat) on Monday February 24, Captain John Clarkson, Chair of the Maritime Museum of British Columbia, stated: “We are very excited about working with the City of Langford on this proposed project. This is the perfect opportunity for the Museum to establish a cooperative development model involving both the government and private sector to create an excellent experience for visitors to Langford and Greater Victoria.”
During the pre-event, Maritime Museum of British Columbia Executive Director David Leverton was pleased that the museum will have a new home in a bustling community location with plenty of surrounding activity and parking for families and tourists.
The Maritime Museum of British Columbia left its previous downtown-Victoria Bastion Square location about five years ago, with collections in storage ever since. “In the new museum, most of the artifacts will be on display for people to see and enjoy,” said Leverton on Monday.
Leverton says that some artifacts might be repatriated from the maritime museum in Ottawa. As well, the museum in this new project will work with First Nations about their role in terms of heritage and culture and how they want to participate, explained Leverton.
The Museum and City of Langford will work towards creating partnerships with School District 62, other school districts, and post-secondary institutions in light of another new highschool coming to Langford in the McCallum area near the new Pacific Marine Centre development, as well as a new post-secondary institution in coordination with Royal Roads University that is still in the works.
The Museum and City of Langford will also work toward creating partnerships with First Nations, non-governmental organizations, federal and provincial departments, youth and daycare programs, other private sector entities, and community-based arts and cultural organizations.
All of this came together relatively quickly, with the first ‘chat over coffee’ between the martime museum and Langford just last year.
There are other maritime museums in Darmouth, Nova Scotia and Gatineau/Ottawa, Ontario where Parks Canada is aiming to centralize the artifacts in their collections. The Pacific Maritime Centre will be BC’s contribution to the maritime museum story.
===== More news about the February 25, 2020 official signing event will be posted after the event.