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Soaring construction and project costs for a new Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) could mean a redesign and a smaller eventual new gallery, VAG CEO Anthony Kiendl told BIV this afternoon.
Costs related to a new Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG), excluding any endowment funds, have soared about 50 per cent to $600 million, up from $400 million in the past two years, he said.
VAG is therefore going back to the drawing board, so to speak, and may redesign the project to reduce capital requirements.
The project had been for a 310,000-square-foot, 220-foot-tall building with more than 80,000 square feet of exhibition space, which is more than double that in the existing gallery at Robson Square.
The VAG has raised about $357 million, Kiendl said, and has completed the first stage of pre-construction work on the new gallery at a site on the southern two-thirds of the block bounded by Cambie, Dunsmuir, Beatty and West Georgia streets.
Because of the redesign work there will be less active construction at the site, he said. The VAG is continuing to raise funds and work on the project.
VAG has been raising funds for its new gallery for 16 years
Fundraising for a new gallery started in 2008, when former premier Gordon Campbell's government committed $50 million. The B.C. government then upped its financial commitment for a new gallery to $100 million thanks to a second $50-million pledge in October 2022.
That follow-up support from the B.C. government, which followed many years of asking from VAG executives, followed a government fiasco involving another cultural project in the province earlier in 2022.
Former premier John Horgan in May 2022 announced that his government would fully fund a new $789-million museum to replace the Royal B.C. Museum in Victoria. Public opposition prompted him the following month to postpone the project, and do more consultation.
The federal government's contribution to a new VAG is so far much smaller than that from the province.
Ottawa pledged $29.3 million toward the new gallery in June 2022. That commitment included $4.3 million from Canadian Heritage, with the remaining $25 million coming from Infrastructure Canada. Kiendl said today that the feds' total commitment has increased to $31.5 million.
The gallery has long been asking the federal government to match the provincial government's contribution, and that is still the case, Kiendl said.
"It would be appropriate for a project of this scope in Canada's third-largest metropolitan region to have substantial support from the federal government, because it is a project of national significance for all Canadians," he said.
The new VAG has support from all levels of government.
Vancouver city council in 2013 agreed to give the VAG a 99-year lease on its desired site, which had been known as the city-owned Larwill Park, even though it housed a parking lot. The site was valued at $100 million at the time, and has increased in value since.
The city initially stipulated that in order to get that lease, the VAG needed to get at least a total of $100 million from the province and $100 million from the federal government by spring 2015. Councils then kept punting that deadline into the future.
Kiendl said that he believes the VAG has met the city's funding requirement given the extent of its fundraising from governments and individuals.
The most significant private donation toward the project came from businessman philanthropist, Polygon Homes chairman and art lover Michael Audain, who committed $100 million to the new gallery in November 2021.
Vancouver's Chan family donated $40 million to the new facility in January 2019. That family is headed by Caleb Chan, who runs the Burrard Group. Chan made his fortune from operating more than a dozen golf courses, including Nicklaus North, and and investing in real estate development.
The other four largest private donations are all for $5 million, and they came from the Djaved Mowafaghian Foundation, the Diamond Foundation, Phil Lind and a joint donation from Aritzia chairman Brian Hill and his wife Andrea Thomas Hill.
