shopping, shopping , shopping. shopping and more shopping ----- that's what draws people anywhere. Wood innovation centre and offices just don't do it. People go to work there and clients go to those offices and that is that --- no one wanders around the streets afterward -- they go home then to the malls. Downtown PG is dead, literally no one to be seen on the streets after office hours.

Downtown needs condos and shopping ---- but the rub is the old chicken or egg dilemma.
The answer is really quite straight forward --- no need for a zillion studies or tax sucking organizations to come up with another plan.The hard part is convincing big money to take a big gamble and get the ball rolling.

What exactly do they want to do in the wood innovation centre? I'm assuming that they want to do something 'innovative' with wood and it's not just the fact that the building is made of wood?

Do we want to see logging trucks going into the downtown to deliver wood for innovative research work? Do we want solvents and other smelly stuff being used right next door to a restaurant? Do we want loud noises as they work with the wood? A lot of the above aren't even allowed under C1 zoning--the present zoning downtown and for good reason. It doesn't make any sense to try to do this downtown.

There is lots of taxpayer funded room at unbc for wood research. If you want to be innovative with a product such as wood, they should put it where most of the innovators in PG are, namely the BCR site. Empty buildings galore begging for a class tenant...

I think portions of this conversation should be held in the public realm. Thank you for bringing it forward, Ben.

Why should it be held in public?

1. It has been the topic of conversation for some time ... 3 years or so ... ever since it was first announced by the province. The longer a project remains hidden, the more rumours there are and the more annoyed the public gets.

2. For those who read some of the documents prepared by various committees at City Hall, it has been clear that the City is courting the province to locate it downtown, just as they have been courting the UNBC to locate housing downtown for around a decade. An opportunist from San Francisco was even involved with that for some time.

3. The citizens of this community need to be aware of what is happening with the real plans of City Hall as they happen not after they are a done deal. The City belongs to the people who live here. The people sitting around the Council table are the caretakers we have put in place. We are owed reasonable access to what those individuals are doing, what their thinking is, not just what their promises and visions are when they stand in front of us at election time. Are they doing what we thought they would be doing? Are they keeping us informed of the process and of the principles they take into the process? Unless that is done, don't anyone talk about transparency. A glass window is not transparent unless the curtain is drawn.

4. The UNBC is a major player in this community. Again, their plans for the future are of interest to this community and have an impact of how this community develops and prospers. In the past they have made public plans to develop a residential community to the south of the campus. It would be nice to have an update of whether they are actively pursuing that or not. Similarly, there have been considerations to build a research park. A building such as the wood innovation centre would likely make a good start in creating such a “park” and result in it being a catalyst to bring additional research facilities to UNBC, something which cannot happen in the city’s centre unless it is located somewhere which would allow that sort of expansion. In fact, a portion of the light industrial area adjacent to the new Boundary Road is likely more viable than downtown for acting as a catalyst for further development.

As someone has already posted, there is a lot of mystery around what a Wood Innovation Centre actually is. So far, there is no public information about that.

Some think it is a bunch of rocket scientists turned wood nerds sitting around computers simulating products and processes and every few years happening on some relatively important eureka moments that will allow that team or person to be snapped up by Sweden or Austria where they will implement the product by building a plant and selling the products to Canada and the rest of the world.

Some think it will actually do research hand apply it in BC and possibly even in Prince George to finally get us to the next level of wood manufactured products that will be snapped up by the rest of the world.

Few have talked about the fact that we already have a nationally known wood research organization operating in conjunction with UBC in Vancouver as well as a facility in Quebec. FPInnovations can be viewed at this web site http://www.fpinnovations.ca

Since the province is well aware of this organization, I would have thought that by now there would have been word of how the proposed local facility would relate to that organization and what gap it might fill.

Well. No information is forthcoming. That usually means that they really do not know anything yet. Maybe they are actually working on a new secret national defence system and the WIC is a cloak.

rodangus ... I agree, if not in a new research park at UNBC, then the BCR would be ideal as well since that should slowly switch to away from heavy to light industrial and move the heavy industrial out of there to a new heavy industrial park outside the air shed.

The facility in Quebec is in a light industrial area. Among other things, they do testing there that produces small amounts of air emissions on occasion.

If STD(Single Term Dan) and the rest of the gang at city hall think that the WIC is the panacea that will cure all the ills of downtown, they are sadly mistaken. For the Monty Python fans downtown can be compared to the Norwegian Blue pine-ing for the fjords.

Enough public money has been wasted on this, especially if the indirect cost to the taxpayer via interest free loans to the likes of Commonwealth Campus, who double dip when the rest of the properties are flipped back to the city.

Build the damn thing up the hill where it should be and develop a reasonable plan for downtown. Getting a couple of blocks on third done like the 20th ave gateway would be a good place to start.

Having this downtown just means the drunks and druggies will have nicer steps to hand around on.

Better to have the WIC at UNBC. With all the chatter about reducing the carbon foot print it hardly makes sense to have people traveling from UNBC to downtown and back again. All the resources are up on the hill so why change things just to promote the downtown area.