With the City of Ottawa’s five-year cultural action plan up for renewal, the dream for a dedicated, downtown concert hall has been reawakened.
“The concert hall is (on the proposal) because it seems to us that the idea, the concept, was very strong,” says Lilly Koltun, chair of the Arts and Heritage Plan steering committee. “And certainly Ottawa has performance-based, music-based, artists who would be able to use that kind of space and citizens who would want to gather there to hear their work.”
In 2003, city council adopted the arts and heritage plan for the next 20 years, with strategies broken down into five-year increments.
Before renewing the action plan, the committee organized open houses – including a Centretown session on Oct. 3 – to generate feedback about the proposals.
“For those of you who remember the last five years, it was a success – but it was also a fight,” said Somerset Coun. Diane Holmes about the previous plan. “It is very important for our city that we have strong cultural industries.”
Many of the propositions concerning places and spaces aim to make Centretown an arts and culture hub, including the recently shelved Ottawa Main Library, creation of an “Ottawa Heritage Gateway,” and the development of the long-awaited concert hall.
The steering committee identified the need to relaunch the initiative for a “purpose-built, acoustically-superior” concert hall in the downtown core with at least 800 seats.
Ottawa is the only capital city of a major industrialized nation that does not have a concert hall built for that purpose, advocates say.
Friends of the Concert Hall, an organization committed to the goal, will be relaunching efforts to mobilize support for the project.
Alan Bowker, president of Friends of the Concert Hall, recognizes the National Arts Centre and other facilities that tend to the needs of orchestras.
He says a purpose-built concert hall would “fill a niche that no other place does. It would revitalize downtown, be a welcoming place and a focal point . . . it would show the spirit of Ottawa.”
The initiative was part of the previous five-year action plan and has long been a dream of Ottawa’s musicians and music fans.
In 2004, the city rejected developer Bill Teron’s bid to build and donate three-quarters of the costs of the facility due to a conflict of construction schedules. Instead, Toronto developer Morgaurd took over the project.
A site at 150 Elgin St. was secured and all three levels of government approved funding for the project, anticipated to open in 2008. However, the Ottawa Chamber Music Society was unable to rally enough private support and the development was dropped.
“It’s unthinkable that a capital city of the wealth of Canada doesn’t have a purpose-built concert hall,” says Julian Armour, spokesman for Friends of the Concert Hall.
Despite concerns about the project's feasiblity, he says it’s still possible.
"The problem in Ottawa is it’s hard to get anything going unless it’s a pure, one-government decision. We’re hoping that there’s another way through it.”