Prince George City Council chose to proceed with one of two proposals for the Civic Core Plan developed by staff at its Monday, Dec. 16 meeting but not before tweaking it after more than two hours of discussion and debate.
The motion as passed by council chose the second of two options staff developed but swapped the location of proposed hotel and residential properties and directed staff to include a partitioned auditorium for the proposed performing arts centre.
It also directs staff to consult arts groups like Studio 2880 in the development of the performing arts centre, consider the future of the Prince George Playhouse during development and maintain open-ended seating options for the new downtown arena contained in the plan.
Staff will now include those elements as they commission consultants to go over the site design, servicing, parking and pedestrian elements of the design.
Councillors said that the final approval and implementation of the Civic Core Plan will be up to residents to decide in a referendum.
The passage of the motion came after lengthy discussions over the wording of proposed amendments and city administration’s confusion over what they described as vague wording.
The Civic Core District includes the city-owned property encompassing Civic Centre, the library, the former site of the Four Seasons Leisure Pool, the Two Rivers Art Gallery, Canada Games Plaza, Kopar Memorial Arena, City Hall, the former Fire Hall No. 1, the Knights Inn, the Canfor Leisure Pool and Veterans Plaza.
City staff offered two potential options for the Civic Core Plan while Mayor Simon Yu presented an alternative. Yu’s plan was the most ambitious of the three.
A 3D rendering of downtown provided in the mayor’s plan shows not just a new orchestra hall or IMAX theatre on the top of Connaught Hill, with an amphitheatre built onto the hill’s slope that incorporates a public art display and an art studio into its base.
A structure labelled “transit exchange” extends out from that facility, incorporating a new route to the top of the hill. Further down, what is currently the North Star Inn has become an unspecified future civic development. Next to that is a “rapid transit line.”
The area behind the Civic Centre and the Prince George Public Library’s downtown branch appears to be transformed into a new plaza named after the Lheidli T’enneh. Patricia Boulevard would be located under the plaza in some way.
Kopar Memorial Arena has been replaced with a new, 5,000-seat rink with an adjoining performing arts centre. The current arena built in 1958 can hold up to 2,112 people, which includes both seated and standing patrons.
Where the old Four Seasons Pool was sits a new convention centre and high-rise hotel. That hotel has two skybridges connecting it to a new apartment building replacing what is currently the Knights Inn.
The mayor’s report to council on his concept plan said it was “designed to mitigate financial risks for the city while alleviating costs borne by taxpayers.”
Financial relief to taxpayers would come in the former of “strategic use of potential private funding to support public-requested initiatives.”
The development would be done in phases to reduce disruptions to municipal operations, though the report does not outline what those phases or timelines would be.
Presenting his idea, the mayor said he was offering the vision he promised residents during the last mayoral election. He said to the best of his knowledge, all the elements could be built but a lot of people have to say yes before it can move to the next stage.
He described it as Prince George making a statement that it is one of the best cities in the world.
That includes getting other council members and administration to say yes and three key details: money, resources and time.
“It’s not an easy task,” Yu said.
He said the city has the needed resources like engineers and designers, but needs to find the money and time.
However, he described it as a multi-generational plan.
In developing his own plan, Yu said he studied what residents asked for in public consultation. He said he believes it considers everything on their wish lists and more.
The private investors’ roles, Yu said, would be primarily in the creation of the new arena and performing arts centre.
Not only does Prince George need to expand its convention centre, but it also needs a place to house diverse commercial and creative groups to hold events in, the mayor said.
Discussing the proposed creation of the new Lheidli T’enneh Plaza, Yu said it was because the bottom of Connaught Hill was once the confluence of the Nechako and Fraser Rivers — Lheidli T’enneh translates to “the people from the confluence of the two rivers.”
Discussing the arena, he said it would not only be for the Spruce Kings, but for a future UNBC Timberwolves hockey team; 5,000 seats would provide a "nice crowd feeling," Yu said. He described the convention centre and arena as the cornerstone of his plan.
In creating his proposal, Yu said he studied the needs of winter cities and said he thought it fulfilled them.
Creating a rapid transit line, which would extend to UNBC, would help people get downtown without needing to find parking space for them.
When it came time to discuss Yu’s idea, Coun. Trudy Klassen said the plan was “audacious” and asked how he thought it was feasible.
The mayor agreed that it was audacious but argued that it was feasible if phased properly. He pitched the early involvement of private funding in areas like the convention centre and hotel, limiting the expansion.
He said the items on top of Connaught Hill could be done, for example, 100 years in the future when technology has advanced. He also addressed the North Star Inn, saying that he does not view the housing it provides being necessary past 10 to 20 years in the future.
Because a lot of those properties are owned by the city, he said it might be possible to dig them up to install the initial infrastructure all at once to set a foundation for the future.
Getting private businesses to buy in would be a matter of getting lease agreements with them, creating a financeable business case.
“It might not be the end-all, be-all,” Yu said. “It might be too grandiose for some people’s liking. But we need to establish an endgame.”
Coun. Brian Skakun said that no matter what council decided Monday night, it would be a multi-generational plan.
Coun. Ron Polillo said he applauded Yu’s “guts” to present his vision. He said he liked the connectivity options it present, though he also said it was grandiose and likely very expensive.
Coun. Cori Ramsay wanted to know what the community consultation and research Yu referenced in his report was. He said he spoke with the civic plaza development group and studied the results of public consultation the city undertook.
Another group the mayor said he spoke with were local ethnic groups and students, who don’t always participate in the city’s public outreach efforts. Other groups he said he spoke with included arts and hockey organizations.
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.”
City staff’s first civic core proposal sees a new 4,500-seat arena where the Four Seasons Pool once stood. Across the street, where Fire Hall No. 1 was located, is a new 800-seat performing arts centre. Other elements include a park and a mixed-use residential development.
A new mixed-use hotel is proposed on Dominion Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues.
Staff’s second proposal was similar, but with a different orientation. The new 4,500-seat arena is located on the same site as the current Kopar Memorial Arena and would have a park built next to it.
Then, where the Four Seasons Pool once sat are the performing arts centre and mixed-use residential developments and another park. The mixed-use hotel on Dominion Street is in the same location.
Staff’s report to council said that administration asked that the plans for the ice arena and performing arts centre be shown at the maximum possible size and specifies that they can be scaled down from what is shown.
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.
Both proposals also contain areas labelled “flex space.”
“The flex space is additional space that could accommodate a variety of users for different types of events that may be in conjunction with, or separate from, the uses occurring in the larger buildings,” the report said. “The indicators of pedestrian connectivity (on the diagrams) could be ground level and/or above ground level.”
For both proposals, staff note that further work is needed to review parking, servicing and site design needs.
Presenting details from staff’s plan to council was Mandy Jones, the city’s manager of development services.
She said their proposals encompass council’s strategic priorities for the downtown core, the myPG sustainability plan and the 2009 “Smart Growth on the Ground” downtown development plan.
The plans, Jones said, are high-level and show approximate building sizes and land uses for properties in the Civic Core.
In both proposals, Jones said the locations of mixed-use hotel and the mixed-use residential buildings are interchangeable.
With the first option, Jones said, the new arena would be built while the existing Kopar Memorial Arena is in service.
Following the presentation of the proposals to council, staff presented council with four options:
- Council identifies their preferred option and direcs administration to further develop the plan
- Council directs administration to develop an alternative plan with specific direction on land use, location and building size
- Defer a decision on the Civic Core District Plan to a future meeting
- Vote to receive the report but not direct staff to take further action
Jones said options one and two would result in costs from hiring consultants to start preparing designs. Building the new facilities would incur more significant costs.
Sampson said he was excited for the proposals and thought a lot of the community was, too, because of the need to address several infrastructure deficits. Addressing the future of the arena, he said it would provide certainty to groups like the Spruce Kings.
He advocated for proposal two but wanted the locations of the hotel and residential buildings swapped. Sampson also expressed concern over duplicating local services by building another arena while the CN Centre still has life left in it.
As for the performing arts centre, Sampson said it should also include elements so that it can be the home of the new Studio 2880 and there should be a look into what the future of the Prince George Playhouse is.
Klassen said she was leading with option two and wanted any plan going forward to include the ideas from a resident-led plan developed in 2022 that consulted user groups most affected by the redevelopment.
Ramsay said the Civic Core Plan is one of the items she’s spoken with residents about the most since joining council six and a half years ago. She said it was important to have a dedicated performing arts centre, because it is something people looking at moving to the city are looking for.
Among her peer group with elected officials in other communities, she said there’s a perception that growth pays for growth and that the city would be more in a position to pay for the Civic Core Plan as it grows.
Someone in the audience muttered “that’s false” in response.
Polillo said this was ultimately a decision for residents to make in a referendum. He said a larger arena like in Yu’s proposal was the right idea and added that Prince George needs a plan to transform itself like other communities like Kamloops have undertaken.
Skakun said he didn’t want council to constrain staff and future consultants too much by mandating elements like the precise size of the new arena. He said senior levels of government also need to provide their fair share of tax dollars to help the city fulfill its downtown goals.
Bennett concurred with that last point, adding that the city needs a Civic Core Plan it can sell to private business and the public.
Yu said that fundamentally, the difference between his proposal and the ones prepared by staff members, were the size of the convention centre and the presence of retail space. He said a convention centre is important for tourism, as shown in larger cities like Vancouver and Toronto.
At that point in the meeting, Yu advocated for council to direct staff to create a new plan incorporating some of the elements and concerns expressed at the meeting.
Klassen pitched amending the motion to include staff’s consideration of the resident-led report as well as the mayor’s proposal. Staff expressed confusion over the wording of the motion and their ability to deliver on its directives, saying it was too vague. This amendment was ultimately defeated.
Responding to Sampson’s comments on his motion, the mayor said he was against the amendment to the design of the performing arts centre because it would lead to a building that wouldn’t be designed acoustically for the Prince George Symphony.
When Sampson tried to respond to the mayor to tell him that wasn’t the intent of his motion, Yu tried to give Skakun the floor before Sampson asserted that he was allowed to respond.
Ultimately, the motion passed included the swap of the hotel and residential, flexible partition and seating options for the performing arts centre, consideration of what to do with the “air space” above the centre, consultation of arts groups in the creation of the centre, consideration of the future of the Playhouse and to be flexible in the seating capacity of the arena.
Yu, Klassen and Skakun voted against the final motion.
The final motion
That Council IDENTIFIES Conceptual Design Option 2 as attached to the report dated November 28, 2024 from the Director of Planning and Development titled “Civic Core District Concept Plan Options” as the preferred option and DIRECTS Administration to procure consultant services to prepare detailed site design, servicing feasibility studies (i.e.: Sanitary sewer, water, and storm), parking and pedestrian analysis and renderings; and incorporates the following considerations into the site design:
Swap location of the proposed hotel and residential building, and incorporate the possibility of mixed commercial/residential/hotel on both sites, and possibility of further sale of airspace of the PAC;
Include a partitioned auditorium with seating of a range of approximately 1400 seats and a multi-purpose use seating system for the Performing Arts Centre; and that the building possibly include a rehearsal/blackbox space;
Include the arts groups (e.g.: Studio 2880) in the layout of the site plan;
Consider the future land use of the Prince George Playhouse property; and
Maintain open-ended seating for the Arena with further exploration to help determine the best facility to meet our communities needs.
History of the civic core plan
The most recent proposals for the Civic Core Plan were ordered for preparation by city council on Dec. 19, 2023, but their development extends beyond that.
Back in March 2022, the City of Prince George started work on a new Civic Core Plaza for the area around the Canada Games Plaza. A contract was awarded to engineering firm Stantec to carry out the work later that year.
At the time, The Citizen reported that this work was to be based on the “Smart Growth on the Ground” plan that council adopted back in 2009.
This paper also reported that the city had around $28.3 million available to it in a reserve after FortisBC purchased Prince George’s natural gas distribution system, which could be spent to refresh aging municipal facilities.
The scope of work included the demolition of the Four Seasons Leisure Pool and Fire Hall No. 1, which has since been completed. The city said at the time that the Prince George Coliseum (now Kopar Memorial Arena), Studio 2880 and the Prince George Playhouse had reached the end of their lifespan and need to be replaced.
Studio 2880, which is more than 80 years old, needed $260,350 in repairs in 2022 to keep functional in the short- to medium-term. In 2021, council approved $500,000 in repairs to the Playhouse after a section of stucco failed and rot was found underneath though city staff warned that cost could rise into the millions over time.
The former Coliseum is now 66 years old and doesn’t live up to BCHL standards mandating safer rink boards and a scoreboard with video replay capabilities. Its ice surface is also 10 feet shorter than NHL regulation length, a standard which the CN Centre meets.
The Citizen also reported that Dominion Street and Seventh Avenue to the south and east of the plaza could eventually be closed as part of the redevelopment. Though the site of the former Knights Inn at 650 Dominion Street was not part of the Civic Core Area as originally defined, it was added after the city purchased the property in October 2023.
Later that year, six residents from different backgrounds came together to create their own plan for the civic core centering on the area around the Canada Games Plaza.
It was made up of Noreen Rustad, Les Waldie, Margaret Jones-Bricker, Steve Henderson, Eli Klasner and Cameron Stolz, who purchased The Citizen earlier this year. Their final report was published that November.
“The work of the citizen group is not intended to replace the City of Prince George consultation on the Civic Core Plan, but to enhance the possibilities by working collaboratively, building a consensus among all groups and citizens in support of the proposed redevelopment,” that final report said.
Through their work, the sextet identified 11 primary partners that the redevelopment would most affect: The Community Arts Council/Studio 2880, Downtown Prince George, Lheidli T’enneh First Nation, Miracle Theatre, the Prince George Airport Authority, the Prince George Chamber of Commerce, the Prince George Spruce Kings, the Prince George Symphony Orchestra, Russell Productions, Theatre Northwest and Tourism Prince George.
They were consulted in the development of the citizen-led plan.
The final report suggested that the redevelopment centre around a dual-use convention and arts space building with a 1,000-seat chamber, a lobby/reception area with capacity for 1,000 people, a second hall with 200 seats and other multi-use shared space.
It proposed a 2,000-seat replacement for the arena that could be connected to the new convention centre and used for trade shows when not occupied by hockey. The atrium connecting the buildings was proposed to include retail opportunities.
Along the outside perimeter of the new arena and convention centre, the citizen group suggested that the space be used to house Studio 2880 and other arts, including 30,000 square feet for the Community Arts Council.
It also suggested a tourism centre supported by Lheidli T’enneh. This goal has been partially met after Tourism PG opened a permanent location at the plaza this year.
Other suggestions included building an outdoor community stage, an umbrella organization to manage the space and building the entire project in a single phase.
A theme identified in the citizens’ report was a need for “activated” community space, defined as “outdoor green space that would be accessible multi-season with common areas for families.”
The idea was for something like the Granville Island Public Market in Vancouver.
In November 2022, Stantec gave a progress update on its work to council. At that point, the company envisioned that its plan would be presented to and adopted by city council by Dec. 2023.
In July 2023, The Citizen reported that Stantec was running behind on its work preparing the core plan. Because of that, city staff took over work on public consultation for the new plan.
City staff ran public engagement from July through September that year that included the launch of a dedicated page on the city’s website, social media posts, advertising, five roundtable discussions that more than 30 community organizations were invited to attend, a survey with 1,032 responses, three email submissions and three pop-up events.
Through that survey, staff listed three major priorities that residents wanted for the area: shops and cafes with housing above them, a performing arts centre and an ice arena.
When council voted last December in favour of hiring a consultant to help develop the Civic Core District Plan, Coun. Trudy Klassen tried to amend the motion so that Studio 2880 and the Prince George Spruce Kings would be consulted during the process.
However, it was defeated.
