Downtown still seems to be favoured for new arts centre

I sense there continues to be a bias in favour of locating a new performing arts centre downtown, though other locations are gaining some momentum.

At Saturday’s well-attended public-input session, much of the discussion was around what types of amenities and peripheral services people would like to see attached to a performing arts centre. In this sense, the questions posed to the breakout groups skewed the discussions.

There were plenty of ideas, some intentionally silly and some really good. Some people want coffee shops, restaurants, bus stops, parking, and an arts zone, for example. There’s only one place all this could be found, and that’s downtown. Where there’s no land available.

I heard one idea, among the hundreds thrown out, that I hadn’t heard before — consider breaking the project into pieces that would be built in different locations. For example, a large theatre in one place and a smaller theatre in another.

This notion of an arts zone is, I think, highly flawed. There’s no logical reason to concentrate arts in one small area. It provides no net benefit; indeed, there are many disadvantages, such as crowding, parking challenges, and the creation of favoured status upon one area of the city.

An arts zone is not, of itself, a draw. Individual arts facilities bring people to them for events. You don’t go to an arts zone to hang out.