A new city museum and city archives?

[UrbanRail]

Royal BC Museum is great and is world renowned for its exhibits, but it only tells the story of BC not of Victoria.

Perhaps the construction of a new museum that shows the history of our city; transportation, culture, architecture, environment, politcs, etc.

Also the fact is our archives suck. Its too small, not interactive, its hidden in an outdated building. We need to build something that showcases our history to the public. Whether that is part of a new library or not, I dont know. It needs to be interactive.

Heck, look at Vancouver's new library and archives, why not something like that?

Any thoughts?

[Mike K.]

Not to sound jaded or anything, but unless the private sector is involved we might as well forget about it. And if the private sector was to get involved, City Council would very likely squash the proposal together with the projects public facility(s). Recall what happened when City Hall got in the way of the Crystalview project that was to be built with a new downtown art gallery specifically for the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria's use.

And when you sit back and think about it, how many years (decades?) have we been talking about a new downtown library, a new performing arts centre, a new maritime museum, a downtown art gallery, a modernized City Hall, etc., etc., etc. The only thing this city loves to do is get in the way of meaningful projects then lament something or other a decade later that ironically could have been solved or appeased a decade prior by the rejected project.

[G-Man]

While I agree with UR I would love to see and have often we need a city museum, with the current fiscal issues facing the city I am not sure this will happen anytime soon without private money combined with some sort of private project.

The best option I could see currently is to use the Jawl proposal across from city hall as a location. The Royal Bank building will be vacant and is on the heritage registry, with some concessions by the city on density and height perhaps the Jawls could have that become a new archive and museum.

That said when you look at the issues being raised about selling a useless piece of asphalt and a traffic island as part of the NJ proposal I will not see it likely that the city would actively pursue this.

[UrbanRail]

I am actually jaded as well by every council in the past 20 years. The city doesnt seem to want to make any improvements or be progressive in anything.

[UrbanRail]

You know what, I think I will just stop coming up with ideas for this city and region, as I am wasting my time.

Mike K. you are right, its pointless to try to promote anything new for Victoria, as it will be killed by whiny interest groups, pointless committees, studies and councils that seem too scared or disinterested in anything that could bring more life to the downtown core.

Its so frustrating.

There is no point in convincing people to live downtown if you arent going to make an effort to bring in facilities that will attract them.

[Bernard]

The current City of Victoria archives are not only hidden away and often closed, they had some flooding as well.

We do need a decent central library, and that would be a good home for the City of Victoria archives. Saanich have their archives in the library at Tillicum.

Esquimalt has their's underneath the MacDonald's

I will also add that as some that studied history and is a regular user of archives for my work, there is very little value placed on archives by any government.