Members of Barrie’s performing arts community are celebrating council’s decision to re-engage an architecture firm to draft designs for a theatre and rehearsal space on the shores of Lake Simcoe.
On Wednesday, members of council all voted in favour of engaging Hariri Pontarini Architects (HPA) to work on preliminary plans for the proposed Barrie Performing Arts and Event Centre, which is to occupy the site of the current Sea Cadets facility on the south shore of Kempenfelt Bay.
HPA is, perhaps, best known for designing the spiralling One Bloor building in Toronto. The firm also designed the MacLaren Arts Centre in Barrie, which was completed in 2001.
Working with a task force led by members of council and members of the Barrie Arts Alliance (BAA), the firm previously drafted a concept design for a version of the arts centre that would cost more than $100 million to construct. It featured a main theatre, a secondary stage for smaller productions, a rehearsal area as well as a film projection room.
Deputy Mayor Robert Thomson, a bass singer who was part of the task force working with the BAA, says he had initially been uncomfortable when the group elected to “shoot for the moon” during the initial design phase.
“[Task force members] went on tours and saw lots of theatres and extracted the greatness of every one they visited. . . . I knew I was going to have to come back here and try to convince five other people to go along [with it, something that] was going to be difficult because of the price tag.”
Despite his initial concerns, Thomson believes the approach helped clarify design priorities. Only after specifying everything that the arts community wanted was the task force able to identify what it needed. “I really appreciated that aspect. I was there as a task force member but they understood I was going to come back here.”
Under the terms of the $200,000 re-engagement, HPA will now work on new design schematics for a 4,120 sq. m. facility with a $65 million budget. The new design is expected to include both the original 600-seat main theatre found in the original drafts as well as a combined rehearsal site and secondary stage. Both buildings are expected to include cinema projection booths.
“That’s the best value for the taxpayers of the city of Barrie — if you bring in a new architect, they have to start all the way back at the beginning,” says Chuck Rattan, of the BAA as well as the task force. “It’s also what’s best for us — [HPA] has already worked with us and understands our needs.”
“So that’s the compromise everyone’s been talking about — it brings the budget down from $118 million to $65 million,” says Rattan. “That’s for the interior and exterior, complete with seating and audio-visual components.”
The re-engagement of HPA is not the last hurdle the proposed facility will need to overcome. The next step will involve testing the ground at the site to ensure it is sturdy enough to support the weight of the buildings. Funding for similar municipal projects is typically split evenly between the municipal, provincial and federal government, with about 10 per cent funded by private donors.
“The mayor would like the concept design to be completed around Christmastime,” says Rattan. “Then come the grant applications.”
