A horseshoe-shaped building at the West Coast Railway Heritage Park may bring good fortune to the entire community. Eighteen years after initially proposed, construction has finally started on the 21,000 square foot Roundhouse and Conference Centre.
With a capacity of more than 1,000 people, the distinctive building could ramp up the community's ability to host indoor festivals and large-scale banquets, said Mayor Ian Sutherland."I think that's a fantastic project for the community," he said, adding it is hard to tell what opportunities the town has missed out on in the past due to a lack of venue space.
When Brennan Park is converted into a banquet hall for such events as last fall's Fundraising Tribute to Dr. LaVerne Kindree, it took a triumph of interior decorating to convert the gymnasium into a site for haute cuisine.Soon, the Roundhouse will offer a much simpler route to gala-readiness. Organizers will only have to move a few train cars out of the building. The Roundhouse has already been booked for the Association of Railway Museum's international conference in September 2009.
These days, the ground is just beginning to break to make way for the Roundhouse's foundation. The building is slated for completion at the end of 2008 - a day that can't come soon enough for West Coast Railway Association president Don Evans."I can't wait to have it," he said. "Imagine sitting and having a banquet with the Royal Hudson as your bookend."
The concept of turning the Roundhouse into a dual-purpose building first sprung up in 2001 with a projected completion date of 2006, said Evans. But rising construction costs and concerns about flooding pushed the timeline back by about two years.
Most of the year, the Roundhouse will serve as exhibit grounds for seven of the park's most prized collection pieces, such as the Royal Hudson. To ensure the building's versatility, it has been designed with a turntable plaza to make the enormous machines movable.The turntable, donated by Canadian National Railway will sit outside the building, acting as a pivoting bridge between outdoor tracks and the inside tracks leading up to displays. When the building needs to be cleared out for space, the cars will be rearranged into an outdoor exhibit.
"It's very exciting for us because it adds another dimension to the heritage park," said Evans.
With a red brick exterior and a wall of glass, the building will be a model of typical railway structure and facilities, he said.People passing by the park on Government Road will be able to catch a regular glimpse of the trains through the building's south-facing side where display cars will be nosed up to the glass wall.Evans said funding for the Roundhouse has gone well, with $4 million of the targeted $6 million already raised. The first $2 million came from the provincial government and was matched by an anonymous donor.
The rest is expected to come through major sourcing. Businesses will have the opportunity to place their name on the building's wall.
