Civic Centre Plaza Reno Plans to Be Unveiled
Tuesday, August 13, 2013 @ 3:58 AM
Prince George, B.C.- The invitation will be officially issued this week, but you are being invited to one of two public open houses on the proposed changes to the Civic Centre Plaza.( at right, Civic Centre Plaza – photo courtesy City of Prince George)
While the full details of the proposed $500 thousand dollar reno will be put before Council on August 19th, the public will get a chance to meet with the Design Consultants the following day at one of two sessions; noon to 2 pm, or 5 -7 p.m. Both sessions are to take place in rooms 201-202 and 203 at the Civic Centre.
The City’s Official Centennial Celebration website indicates a timeline for the project and a plan to have the open house in June. Although the open house is just occurring now, the head of Leisure Services, Colleen Van Mook, says that doesn’t mean the project is two months behind schedule, rather, the timeline was “ambitious”.
The renovation will feature a design that celebrates the city’s location at the confluence of two rivers, “Artistic, historical, living and natural elements will define a landmark venue” reads the invitation that was initially sent to stakeholders and will be rolled out to the general public this week.
The “landmark venue” will also be developed to be the centre for medal presentations and entertainment during the Canada Winter Games and as a focal point for the City’s centennial celebrations. The plaza will also be renamed the Canada Winter Games Plaza.
The City’s Capital budget plan called for the spending of $50 thousand dollars on the project this year, and the balance of $450 thousand to be spent in 2014. All of the money for this project is coming from the City’s Capital Reserve fund.
Comments
The City needs to make the Civic Centre a functional venue. It could be such a great place to host small local outdoor events (small performances, the farmers market, etc) but nothing happens there. Any improvement is a good improvement for the downtown.
My street within the city still has ditches. Priorities, folks. Enhanced and upgraded since I bought here, but still….
Seems to me that this Plaza will make the Civic Centre less functional that it presently is, or at best the same.
My understanding is that this will be a cosmetic makeover, but the basic infrastructure of the public square will remain the same.
Renaming it the Canada Winter Games Plaza is apparently to fill a requirement that at least one site in town bear the name of the event in perpetuity.
Would this be the same perpetuity that was applied to the recreational land along highway 16 that now hosts a series of car lots??
In any event we will have to look at the design, however it appears that the decision is already made.
$500,000.00 from the Capital Projects Fund. This fund seems to work wonders for the City, as they can access it and spend money at will. They can replenish the fund by selling off prime property.
Perhaps they should have named Kin 1, the Kin 1, Canada Winter Games, Centre, and saved us some money.
“Would this be the same perpetuity that was applied to the recreational land along highway 16 that now hosts a series of car lots??”
t
Modern attractively landscaped car dealerships (and other businesses) sure beat the perpetually waist high weed filled and garbage strewn “recreational land” that negatively affected the image of our city.
That’s not ‘a landmark venue’ and it’s seems to me to be a COMPLETE waste of taxpayers $$$. $500,000 would sure fix a lot more potholes!! Lord knows, we have enough of them; and even though the ‘plaza’ isn’t getting used much, there isn’t anything ‘wrong’ with it.
More hair/hare brained ideas to waste our money. I keep saying–when do we get to vote again???? Goodbye, Shari & gang!
Anything, within reason, that makes Prince George a more attractive place is great.
However – how about some attention to 1st Avenue. A few days ago we returned home via 1st, and literally cringed when I saw the dilapidated old buildings, the weeds along the rail tracks, and the general disgrace of the whole area. No matter how nice the Visitor Centre is presented, its overshadowed by the mess. What a way for our visitors to enter Prince George. No wonder a lot of our guests comment on how Prince George is an ugly place. They can’t see past this in order to appreciate some of our attractive areas.
PG: “Modern attractively landscaped car dealerships (and other businesses) sure beat the perpetually waist high weed filled and garbage strewn “recreational land” that negatively affected the image of our city. “
Bang on.
Sinking tax dollars into this project was probably a requirement prior to purchase by one of the private stakeholders involved in the sell-off and privatization of city infrastructure mandated through the KPMG consultation process.
Just another sweetheart deal for the corporate set . . .
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Some people would think that a car dealership is a beautiful thing to behold, others wouldn’t, and would see it as nothing more than what it is. A holding yard for vehicles pending sale , with the attendant flags and other seedy attractions blowing in the wind.
If the area was **high weed filled, and garbage strewn** we can blame the City as it was their responsibility to keep it neat and tidy.
Take a look at the mess they have created on the East end of 3rd Ave. if you want to see how they look after things.
As for 1st Avenue. At least with the trees added on the North East end, and the taking out of some buildings, this area has improved considerably in the past few years.
“The renovation will feature a design that celebrates the cityâs location at the confluence of two rivers, âArtistic, historical, living and natural elements will define a landmark venue”
This description sounds a lot like the verbal diarrea used to explain the design of the new Police Palace.
And that place is oh so ugly.
metalman.
Anyone who has been observing knew that the plaza was going to get a rearrangement of its furniture to the tune of half a million bucks. So, nothing new there.
Why these pre-announcements all the time? This will be happening a week from now. Are we all excited? Can we get some little peeks on a daily basis to raise the expectations of what we will get? Maybe a symbolic river or two which we already have the river rock for in front of the Two Rivers Gallery? Another totem to symbolize the First Nations?
Most certainly we will not be able to go without enough flag poles for the provincial and territorial flags with the Canadian flag prominent among them.
Will the plaza be more functional as it already is for gatherings and the start and finish of parades? Who knows.
But, if someone does not introduce some daily functioning reason for people to use it tied in with a perfectly wonderful civic centre, library, art gallery and aging swimming pool, the whole thing will just be more window dressing without a cause.
Summit started to say it. The Buildings that are there now need to be used more often. Make use of the deck space on the library. That is completely useless space. So is the atrium-like foyer of the Civic Centre. Works great during large events as a spill-out space. The other 340 days of the year the space can be used for more commercially operated people functions.
In a nutshell, the original program for the cultural heart of PG which was developed in the late 1970’s was never fulfilled. Instead we have a bunch of buildings standing like Prima Donnas in a sterile, cold plaza.
Let us see if someone will usher in a new start for what could be the heart of the City.
I wish there was a ‘like’ or ‘agree’ button to click–! Metalman, I just call that eyesore, the Edifice!
The City is looking at two concepts. One is called The River, and touches on the importance the Fraser and Nechako rivers have played in the Cities history, according to the Van der Zalm and Associates proposal.
Quote **The river provides for dramatic opportunities to break through the formal grid of the plaza, providing new landscape forms and opportunities**,
The proposal calls for a public art installation in front of the Civic Centre’s entrance in the form of a steel cage-like structure with rocks inside. Community members could be invited to make donations of rocks, which will appear to be flowing into the river.
Loose rocks? ….. prime tools for vandals.
A preliminary view of the “concept”
http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=GP&Date=20130705&Category=PRINCEGEORGE0101&ArtNo=307059973&Ref=AR&maxw=900&maxh=650
Just spent 40 mill on a new cop shop for the Scurge in Red…someone has Rocks in there head..
As for sCarY sHerry jus another one term wonder..
While on the subject of civic centre improvements:
Set the clock in the tower to be correct.
it is five minutes slow.
There, saved $500k!
@gus. From that link, it looks like they are budgetting $500,000 for a water fountain, a few trees, and some sod. Makes me a bit worried.
The water fountain exists. Not sure if they are building another one or simply recirculating little rivulettes ….. a far cry from two fast moving major provincial rivers.
There are a lot of new pavers and green spaces to break up the grounds and render the plaza absolutely useless for large gatherings. The City Hall grounds have a similar problem, although there they can close the streets and spill out onto them.
Where is the real gathering space for crowds going to be for the games ceremonies every evening? The parking lot in front of the Two Rivers Gallery (Notice the name … two rivers)?
Of course unless the trees are spruce/pine they will be bare for the winter …. and puny unless they bring in some big trees …. and there will not be any grass, just mulch to protect it from unwanted people … or maybe piles of snow.
It also looks like the loading space in front of the civic centre will be gone. That is a major requirement during trade shows, etc.
Some trade shows have outdoor tents and display heavy equipment in the plaza … All gone from the looks of it.
There will be no more people there after the games than there are now. Totally useless renos, in my opinion. There is no attraction to sit there. It is too far from office workers who might go there on a nice late spring, summer, early fall day for a bag lunch.
It does not tell me that “PG is a winter City.”
Enlarging the skating rink to the size Kelowna has would have been a much smarter move. No one really skates on that paper towel size rink, especially since the City does not maintain it.
There is no linkage at all shown for the garden the Library is putting in now. In fact, one would never know it is there.
Integration is apparently not that firm’s strength.
This is what a public space looks like when it gets used. Kelowna’s new skating rink opposite City Hall.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6f/Outdoor_skate_rink_Kelowna_003.jpg/1000px-Outdoor_skate_rink_Kelowna_003.jpg
BTW, if you look at that picture from Kelowna, there is a Zamboni in the small building to the right. Works wonders on ice maintenance. ;-)
Some of us actually know that ice skating is a key feature of any winter games …… or I was think they do.
Canada winter games plaza …. and a usable sized, well maintained outdoor rink …. how fitting is that?
b&bgal, interesting that you too find 1st Avenue to be a mess! I commented on that here a few weeks ago when a city manager explained something about the terrific job the city did on landscaping 1st Avenue. Some landscaping was done alright coming into town across the bridge and unto 1st Avenue, but that is a far cry from claiming that 1st Avenue has been landscaped! It is just a small beginning, that`s all! They ran out of money – it may be a very long term project, like the Cariboo Connector!
Smile!
You have to remember, the Games are in the middle of winter. The City will be piling their snow all along first avenue about 10 feet or so high so that people in buses will not be able to look over it to see the rail yards.
They will make sure to stop adding to the pile about 2 weeks before so that everyone can pray for a 10cm snowfall which will cause the whole berm to be nice and white instead of that brown/black snow from the plows.
Maybe people can even donate their Xmas trees so that they can be stuck into the lower part of the berm.
The City entry from airport hill will be stunning!!
It will give a nice wintery entry to the city. ;-)
“Modern attractively landscaped car dealerships (and other businesses) sure beat the perpetually waist high weed filled and garbage strewn “recreational land” that negatively affected the image of our city”
Attractively landscaped car dealerships? Do those even exist? I sure as heck have never seen one in any city I’ve ever been in. Truth be told, even most of buildings are pretty functional in design and not overly appealing. The only exception I can think of would be luxury brands like Audi, BMW, Porsche and Mercedes Benz and PG isn’t getting any of those anytime soon.
Lord help PG if their plans for showcasing the city involve making way for a GM or Dodge dealership. There isn’t a city in Canada that would think that would make sense, why the heck would PG? Wait, don’t answer that, LOL.
For that plot of land, an empty field would be better than a car dealership IMHO. At least the empty field can be developed into something nice at some point in the future . . .
As for the Civic Centre, it’s a social gathering place in the heart of an area that the city has all but given up on developing as a place that people would want to venture into. The irony of spending half a million dollars there is incredible!
Lets make this pretty.. Then after the games we can neglect it due to no money
That condo project across the street from the library should be starting up any day now. Right?
That condo project has a sold sign on it. Not sure if that means the property was sold, or the condo’s. Just got a quick glimpse as I drove by to-day.
Here’s a bit of a timeline regarding the hotel condo project… tick tock tick tock…
“New $40 Million Hotel Condo Complex Officially Unveiled” (Apr. 12, 2012)
blog/view/23985/1/new+$40+million+hotel+condo+complex+officially+unveiled
—
“Downtown Condo-Hotel Project Sets Sites (sic) on Spring Start” (Sep. 12, 2012)
blog/view/25693/1/downtown+condo-hotel+project+sets+sites+on+spring+start
“It will likely be next spring before the first shovels are in the ground for the new $40 million dollar condo and hotel complex that is going in across from the current RCMP building on Brunswick Street.”
—-
“Hotel Constructiion Likely to Start This Summer” (Apr. 13, 2012)
blog/view/23991/1/hotel+constructiion++likely+to+start+this+summer
“The principle investor in the new hotel/condo development for downtown Prince George is hopeful construction can get underway this August.”
Posted by: sjm on August 13 2013 11:02 AM
I wish there was a ‘like’ or ‘agree’ button to click
AGREE
metalman.
I DISAGREE.
1. This is 250NEWS, not Facebook
2. Often there are posts which make more than one point. What happens when one does not like both?
3. If there is an AGREE button, there should also be a DISAGREE button.
4. It would be interesting to see whether it cuts down on the comments.
5. People can come in here to read only without registering. Should others be allowed access to the use of such buttons or just registered visitors? That would prevent duplicate “votes”.
The improvement I would like to see is threaded comments and e-mail notification that a comment has been added to a thread.
Palopu wrote: “That condo project has a sold sign on it. Not sure if that means the property was sold, or the condo’s. Just got a quick glimpse as I drove by to-day.”
Is it the large project sign that has a sold sign on it or the smaller real estate sign behind it on Patricia which has been there for some time in order to promote the property and has had a sold sticker on it since it was sold?
In fact, Google Earth has been in PG a second time and it is shown on the Streetview images taken in May 2012.
Comments for this article are closed.