Winspear Centre Completion Project | 29.87m | 4s | Winspear Centre | Andrew Bromberg

What do you think of this project?

  • Total voters
    51
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They showed renderings to the public of what they planned to build. Then out of the blue during mid-construction they post something different, no news or consulting with the public about it was ever done. We were all baited into thinking the original building was going to get built.

On the bottom of the Winspear Project webpage there are logos from 3 levels of government which means they received funding from all three.
https://www.winspearcentre.com/more/about/about-winspear/winspearproject/
This means that Edmonton taxpayers are directly affected by this project and deserve to know about proposed changes before they occur.
 
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itom987 said:
^
They showed renderings to the public of what they planned to build. Then out of the blue during mid-construction they post something different, no news or consulting with the public about it was ever done. We were all baited into thinking the original building was going to get built.

On the bottom of the Winspear Project webpage there are logos from 3 levels of government which means they received funding from all three.
https://www.winspearcentre.com/more/about/about-winspear/winspearproject/
This means that Edmonton taxpayers are directly affected by this project and deserve to know about proposed changes before they occur.
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$13M from the City, $13M from the province, and $18M from the feds IIRC. I'm sure they would take a large donation from you at this point to spruce up the design if you felt so compelled. They did announce that in addition to the three levels of funding, they would need to fundraise to get the rest. My guess is they didn't hit their targets and had to value engineer it down a bit. If anyone here is truly out of sorts about this, did you donate to the cause? If so, I guess you should have gotten your neighbours to donate too. My guess is that donations fell short. No surprise given the pandemic.
 
westcoastjos said:
$13M from the City, $13M from the province, and $18M from the feds IIRC. I'm sure they would take a large donation from you at this point to spruce up the design if you felt so compelled. They did announce that in addition to the three levels of funding, they would need to fundraise to get the rest. My guess is they didn't hit their targets and had to value engineer it down a bit. If anyone here is truly out of sorts about this, did you donate to the cause? If so, I guess you should have gotten your neighbours to donate too. My guess is that donations fell short. No surprise given the pandemic.
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Not sure why you're asking if one donated to this. 13 million is already from the city. Even if it's one red cent coming from the taxpayer, the Edmonton public should know about changes to projects that they contribute to and have an opportunity to have their say about those changes. I actually like the newer scaled-down render but that's not the point. Look at the Milner disaster. If they had to resort to donations, then don't build until you have the funds to do it.
 
cpnfantstk said:
Not sure why you're asking if one donated to this. 13 million is already from the city. Even if it's one red cent coming from the taxpayer, the Edmonton public should know about changes to projects that they contribute to and have an opportunity to have their say about those changes. I actually like the newer scaled-down render but that's not the point. Look at the Milner disaster. If they had to resort to donations, then don't build until you have the funds to do it.
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Plenty of projects that public dollars go to are done behind closed doors for a variety of reasons whether it is at the national, provincial, or municipal level. We don't always have a right to know about changes to every public funded project nor should we. We can start another thread if we want to go down that rabbit hole.

That said, the primary intent of this building is still intact, the second floor outdoor area and indoor seating area were removed with the previous design features still present. The project was presented with certain usage in mind and they are still meeting those uses while some design elements have changed. A decision was made by someone to meet a timeline while retaining primary usage. Not really a bait and switch. There are better examples out there where poor decisions were made that greatly affected usage and design. If the music hall were to be changed drastically you may have a point.
 
Yes, we probably deserve to know about changes, but the blame as to why we don't is a bit misplaced.

10 or 20 years ago there were people called journalists and reporters - they were full time jobs, not hobbies and they probably would have written something about this. That we are not very informed about this any more is related to the demise of local news.

Of course, governments and bureaucrats often don't mind the reduced scrutiny and take advantage of it.
 
cpnfantstk said:
Not sure why you're asking if one donated to this. 13 million is already from the city. Even if it's one red cent coming from the taxpayer, the Edmonton public should know about changes to projects that they contribute to and have an opportunity to have their say about those changes. I actually like the newer scaled-down render but that's not the point. Look at the Milner disaster. If they had to resort to donations, then don't build until you have the funds to do it.
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Donations were ALWAYS part of the deal, as the public funding (all three levels) was never enough to build it as it was proposed. No one lied about it, the donation plead was on their website's landing page.

It so happens that probably Covid made a lot of the deeper pocket, that could've donated substantial amounts, hold of on this. It also hindered any chance of making a huge donation campaign, fundraisers, etc, as well as any kind of public engagement, that generally raises awareness.

On the other hand, you have a few problems: you don't move on with construction, stopping it to wait for funding and you might have issues with it, increasing costs to remedy eventual degradation of unprotected/unfinished structures.

You also have a lot of pressure to speed up construction and people complaining that it is moving too slow (just go a few pages back on this thread and you'll get a taste of it). So what is it? "Finish the building!", "Everything takes forever to build in Edmonton!", " Typical Edmonton, stretching the construction a moving slow!", or do we move slower and wait (and pray) for more public money, stop it altogether until the donations come back (might take a few years), so we don't have to change the vision? Even though the new version is FAR from being a huge departure from the original project and just scales back to reflect the reduced amount of funding available?
 
westcoastjos said:
Plenty of projects that public dollars go to are done behind closed doors for a variety of reasons whether it is at the national, provincial, or municipal level. We don't always have a right to know about changes to every public funded project nor should we. We can start another thread if we want to go down that rabbit hole.

That said, the primary intent of this building is still intact, the second floor outdoor area and indoor seating area were removed with the previous design features still present. The project was presented with certain usage in mind and they are still meeting those uses while some design elements have changed. A decision was made by someone to meet a timeline while retaining primary usage. Not really a bait and switch. There are better examples out there where poor decisions were made that greatly affected usage and design. If the music hall were to be changed drastically you may have a point.
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Disagree with the bolded although I do understand that the public input can also hinder the progression of a project. A double edged-sword. No need to start another thread. since the Block BG thread has always been a great place to discuss anything.🙃
 
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Taken Sept 15, 2021
20210915_100342_HDR.jpg
 
From Aug 17 EDC Minutes:

Winspear Expansion – Phase 2 (for DP) Joe Tkalcic - TBD Architecture+Urban Planning

Motion of support

The Committee is pleased that the Applicant has made an effort to respond to previous recommendations of the Committee, and notes that the revised design creates a stronger ground level public realm interface at the southeast corner of the site.
 
MCXavierL said:
From Aug 17 EDC Minutes:

Winspear Expansion – Phase 2 (for DP) Joe Tkalcic - TBD Architecture+Urban Planning

Motion of support

The Committee is pleased that the Applicant has made an effort to respond to previous recommendations of the Committee, and notes that the revised design creates a stronger ground level public realm interface at the southeast corner of the site.
Click to expand...
A tree frog would note the difference.
 
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