Megalopolis
And a lot of owl pics
I haven’t yet had the chance to watch Monday night’s council meeting, and likely won’t until Thursday, but fortunately we have municipal affairs reporters to bring us the highlights. Unfortunately, some of those highlights only make me want to watch it more. For example, here’s the Citizen on a portion of the night where councillors discussed Mayor Simon Yu’s downtown vision plan which includes an Imax theatre and outdoor amphitheatre where Connaught Hill currently stands:
[Coun. Cori] Ramsay also said she thought Yu’s assertion that the project would be largely private funded was unrealistic. The mayor said that private involvement would come from the strength of the project’s financial plan as well as the economic plans of the city.
Coun. Garth Frizzell brought up Francis Ford Coppola’s recent film Megalopolis, which he described as a mess but got people talking about urban planning. He said he didn’t think Yu’s proposal was a mess and praised him for his courage in presenting it.
Coun. Tim Bennett said that while he’s not an engineer, he thought Yu’s plan appears to try to cram a lot of elements into a small area.
Addressing the amphitheatre, he said he didn’t understand how it would be built. He asked if it would involve blowing up a part of the hill. That question drew snickering from some audience members.
The mayor clarified that it would involve cutting into the hill and said he modelled it after the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
Asked about the height of the proposed apartment tower, Yu said it would be a medium-rise building.
Later, he addressed the laughs from the audience. He pulled out a small cue card that said something to the effect of “if people aren’t laughing at your goals, your goals are too small.”
I am fairly certain it was within the last few weeks that I said it had been a while since I’d seen an audacious plan for the city based on the notion that it was going to become a major metropolitan area, it does seem the mayor has brought that back and while I appreciate thinking big, I also think we need to plan for the near-term which projects more modest growth, and the rest of council seems to largely agree.
The most detailed writeup of the whole discussion on the downtown plan is in the Citizen, My Prince George Now and CKPG also have coverage.
While Yu believes his vision is possible with investments from the private sector, the financial feasibility of Yu’s vision was a huge reason why several councillors couldn’t get on board.
“To me, this is a multibillion dollar plan for downtown. It doesn’t seem feasible when you look at, I think the report’s overview of the financial expectations around private business carrying a majority of the funding for this, I just think that’s incredibly unreasonable,” Councillor Cori Ramsay said.
“I think we need to look at something that is more possible with what the realities of our community is,” Councillor Kyle Sampson said.
The ultimate decision, from My PG Now:
The concept plan Council chose was option two presented by the City’s Planning and Development department, which has the new arena where the current Kopar Memorial Arena is and where the old Fire Hall #1 was.
Additionally, it puts the new performing arts centre in the open space next to the Civic Centre.
Councillor Kyle Sampson put the motion on the floor, with a few additions.
Those included potentially swapping the locations of the hotel and residences in the plan.
He also wanted to include a partitioned auditorium to allow for a smaller space to be used for the performing arts centre, including a multi-purpose seating system for up to 1,400 seats to ensure the facility can be “as multi-purpose as possible.”
“I’d also like to include that the arts groups be included in this, creating more of an arts centre rather than exclusively a performing arts centre, more of an arts hub if you will,” Sampson said.
“Also with the Playhouse future being included in this, either the disposition of the lands, repurposing for municipal purposes, sale, whatever that looks like, having that piece included.”
Sampson added the seat count for the new arena should be open-ended.
“I don’t want to tie us to this 4,500 seat piece yet, I’d like to have maybe a little bit further conversation that maybe includes the Spruce Kings, the Cougars,” he said.
On that topic, another report from My PG Now:
Projected arena for civic core development could leave Spruce Kings without a temporary home:
During last night’s (Monday), meeting mayor and council selected the option two concept plan where a new arena would be built on the existing site of the current Kopar Memorial Arena as well as the Old Fire Hall #1.
Spruce Kings General Manager, Mike Hawes told MyPGNow.com this option would leave them without a home for well over a year and that sharing CN Centre with the Cougars is a non-starter.
“That is a no-go. City administration knows that it can’t be a shared facility between the two junior teams. We need the advertising in the building and so do the Cougars and there are many aspects to our building that we require to generate revenue to stay afloat. That would not be available to us if we had to share the CN Centre.”
The arena thing is actually a whole kettle of fish. Does it make sense to build a big, new arena for the Spruce Kings while the Cougars play out of the CN Centre? But if you gave the new arena to the Cougars, would you have two large arenas? And would the Spruce Kings have an even more unnecessarily large one? Back to the Citizen:
At 5,000 seats, a new downtown arena would be tied for the biggest in the entire British Columbia Hockey League, which the Prince George Spruce Kings play in. At 4,500 seats, the new arena would be the fourth-biggest in the league.
It would also be a size mismatch with most WHL arenas if the Prince George Cougars were to eventually move there. At 4,500 seats, the new arena would be the fourth-smallest in the WHL.
At 5,000 seats, it would be around 1,000 fewer than are currently available at the CN Centre. It would then be the fifth-smallest in the league.
Anyways, ultimately nothing is going to be finalized without more discussion including, council says, a referendum. But certainly a lot to chew on.
Owl pics:
Let’s throw some moose in, too.
By the way if you haven’t gone out to any woods, I recommend it. There is snow coating everything so literally everything looks like a Christmas card.
News roundup:
City of Prince George Public safety committee pays tribute to Hank Hayden.
Body-worn camera footage already being used for evidence since Prince George rollout.
City Council approves funding for Security Camera Pilot program.
City of Prince George releases recreation guide to help you keep active this winter.
Council approves letter of intent for national Special Olympics bid.
Municipal workers rehabilitated more than 50 km of Prince George roads in 2024.
Prince George company given council OK to continue selling building supplies at 1st Avenue site.
From small events to the CN Centre: How two entrepreneurs turned passion into business success.
Annual Polar Bear Dip at Ness Lake Bible Camp set for January 1.
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Send feedback by emailing northerncapitalnews@gmail.com. Find me online at akurjata.ca.
A 5,000 seat arena seems absurd for the Spruce Kings. Kopar is currently about 2,200. A similar, slightly larger arena would be more appropriate. To be fair, the Spruce Kings GM should not be driving this conversation and leadership really needs to understand optimization to current (with MODEST future capacity considerations) is appreciated by taxpayers.
We can barely fill the CN Centre.
if the mayor is suggesting we 'cut into' Connaught Hill, I can guarantee that I'll be chaining myself to a bulldozer (hahahahaha.... No, really, I'll do this). Also, I'm not an archaeologist (I have worked with some, so pretend I know something) but a prominence like Connaught Hill in this area is pretty much guaranteed to have some kind of archaeological features and/or cultural significance. AND there is some really nice Douglas-fir on it, which I prefer to admire alive.