A committee was struck, plans were made, but the Pac West building downtown will not be transformed into a public market as hoped.
Michelle Neilson of the Squamish Arts Council recently found out seismic testing showed that converting the large green warehouse that sits at the exit to downtown into a public market would not be feasible. She said while the news is disappointing, she wasn’t completely surprised.
“All the odds were stacked against it,” she said. “You had a building that was dilapidated that would have to go through a major renovation, you had a developer who was putting money upfront to add an asset to our community, but you know there is a tipping point as to how much a developer is willing to put into adding assets to a community,” she said.
The development company Solterra had original agreed to convert the building into a public market, which would have also served as an artisan space. Neilson said the concept was for a market similar to the popular Goats on Roof Old Country Markets like the one found in Coombs on Vancouver Island.
Neilson said the time and energy she and other members of the ad-hoc public market committee invested in the plan were still worthwhile.
“It was kind of a nice way to look at what kind of a business model we would have to have in place for a sustainable arts centre,” she said. “That is why I am not too depressed, I don’t think of it as time wasted.”
And while hopes for the market have been dashed for now, Neilson has another plan in the works for the exterior of the building.
Neilson is spearheading a project that will make a wall of the building interactive art pieces, by building on the theme of the Chili Thoms’ 2014 mural The Sound We Want To See.
The Sound Wall will have public art pictures, paintings and Quick Response [QR] codes installed all around the outside of it for the Wind Festival in July, according to Neilson.
“The idea is that we collectively continue to put our voices on the wall of the sound we want to see. So we are encouraging pictures of animals and landscape images and then the QR codes can be voices of people talking about why they love Howe Sound and the QR codes could be sound bites of local musicians playing music,” Neilson said.
She still hopes that a year-round public market and art centre will be set up somewhere.
“Is there a bridge solution that we can find in the downtown, waterfront core that can serve as public market and art centre space until we finally design and build the actual one?” she asked.
