THUNDER BAY - The price tag of constructing a waterfront art gallery in the city has increased by $8 million.
Sharon Godwin, director of the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, said on Tuesday the cost of building a new gallery at the Tugboat Basin near Prince Arthur’s Landing has gone from $25 million to $33 million.
“In 2010 we did a feasibility study and the estimate at that time was about $25 million to build the gallery on the waterfront,” Godwin said. “That’s a total project cost, everything from the design, the construction, the site services, furnishing, all of our consultants, fundraising, and our move from this building.”
The new project cost of $33 million is due in part to inflationary increases, according to Godwin, but it is also because the building is slightly larger.
“It’s 4000 square feet larger,” she said. “Some of that has grown out of our realization of our real needs for this facility so that it meets all the needs in the community and that we won’t have to be expanding this building in a few years. We want service for the future.”
Officials with the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, along with the architects from Vancouver’s Patkau Architects, will present the design of the new building to Thunder Bay city council during the council meeting Monday evening. The new facility’s 40,000 square feet is a substantial increase over the current 16,000 square feet facility on the Confederation College campus.
Godwin said the new facility’s design is married to the location at the Tugboat Basin. The two-story building will hug the shoreline and include large windows, open plaza space, and additional office and gallery space.
“As well, the building has built into it places where we can generate revenue as far as rental space, a larger gift shop, more art classes because we need to do that,” Godwin said. “Some of that is our thinking ahead and thinking proactive about how will we operate this facility and how will we afford to do that and keep the costs down.”
The $2.2 million cost of the design phase of the project was already covered by joint funding from the federal, provincial, and municipal government earlier this summer.
Godwin said the art gallery will be seeking other sources of funding to cover the total project cost of the new facility.
“We have applications to the federal government, we will be applying to NOHFC, and we will be doing a fundraising campaign ourselves,” she said. “We have a budget, we have a revenue plan, and we are working hard to make the costs and the revenue align. That’s our goal.”
Part of the fundraising campaign may include sponsorships or naming opportunities for spaces in the gallery.
“We have a conservative estimate of $2.5 million that we are hoping to raise in the community,” Godwin said. “We are building other sources of funding, we’re looking for government funding and others to help us with that need.”
An open house will be held at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery on Tuesday, Nov. 29 at 7 p.m. to showcase the design of the new facility to the public.
