Cost queries shouldn’t sink Galleria
There’s a no small amount of hostility toward the new downtown super project proposal, the $900-million Galleria arts district.
People are rightly worried about the project’s unknown financial arrangements.
Some strongly dislike the proposed $40-million pedway that will link the new Royal Alberta Museum and adjacent Galleria to the rest of downtown.
Other critics are entirely suspicious of such megaprojects and of the prominent wheeler dealers who push them so hard.
But the Galleria project has the makings of a great public place and a huge benefit for the city.
If the financial arrangements can be made to work — one of Edmonton’s best financial minds, businessman Irving Kipnes, is putting together the deal — the Galleria project will provide a covered outdoor square for concerts, fill a need for concert space with four new concert halls, bring thousands of University of Alberta students downtown to a new music, arts and design campus, and work toward providing major arts organizations with operational dollars so they aren’t so desperate for government subsidies.
Kipnes and his wife Dianne have set up a not-for-profit foundation that will develop the site northeast of 101st Street and 104th Avenue. They have already secured $40 million in private donations for the project. The couple is now trying to get a tenant for a commercial skyscraper and trying to win University of Alberta, city, provincial and federal support. About $150 million is needed from the three levels of government.
The foundation plans to pay for most of the project by arranging a $700-million loan. Space in the office tower will be rented out, with profits used to pay off the loan, maintain the concert halls, and eventually support other downtown arts groups.
Tension around the project grew this week with talk that the Galleria needed a $40-million underground pedway from the LRT, and that city council has to immediately come up with $5 million for it.
Businessman Mack Male, a member of the Downtown Vibrancy Task Force and a blogger on civic affairs, scoffed on Twitter: “$40 million for a pedway?! This is hands down the dumbest #yeg (Edmonton) thing of 2014 so far.”
Male wonders if we need the Galleria and thinks the money could be better spent on LRT: “An $850-million arts project I’m not convinced we want. Competes with arena for tenants, and LRT for funding.”
Prominent local author Marty Chan is also skeptical of the plan. Chan suggests vanity may be driving the project: “Rich people like to put their names on things.”
On that count, it’s worth noting that on this project, the Galleria’s naming rights will be sold, with the profits going to the foundation.
At city council, councillors raised concerns about the pedway, wondering why an underground connection was needed when we’ve already got too many pedways sucking life from our downtown streets.
Slowly, though, as the meeting went on, councillors were won over. First of all, this project is going to bring thousands of people downtown every day, Irv Kipnes told them.
It’s not going to suck the life out of anything. Instead, it will add substantially to our downtown’s population.
Second, if the Galleria never existed, a major underground pedway from the Churchill Square LRT station to the new Royal Alberta Museum would still be needed. Every single major downtown building in this winter city gets linked into the massive pedway system. It would be a huge mistake to not link the RAM. The pedway might also cost much less than $40 million.
Of course, it’s reasonable to question the project until Irv Kipnes can bring together all the pieces. But, at long last, our downtown is on the move in spectacular fashion, even as there’s risk and uncertainty attached to the change.
“I can understand that people are concerned about change,” Dianne Kipnes says. “The arena is going on, the museum is going on, all this change is happening. And people are frightened. What is going to happen? What is happening to our city? How is it going to affect me?
“I think it’s a process of working that through.”
It is indeed a process, a series of difficult negotiations and testy public debates. But the fight is worth it. In the end, we might have this remarkable Galleria development and an even more remarkable non-profit foundation to boost our downtown and the arts. Both of them can use all the boosting they can get.