City talks starting points for Anvil Centre conversation

Its tagline is “where culture, community, and commerce meet,” but the balance of those three themes are being looked at by the City of New Westminster, along with mayor and council, as they prepare for a late summer workshop to look at how the Anvil Centre is being utilized.

The information to be presented at that workshop will have been guided by a questions and input talked about during a special council workshop on Monday, June 19. Couns. Nadine Nakagawa, Daniel Fontaine, and Paul Minhas were not present.

The goal of the Anvil Centre—when it first opened in 2014—was to revitalize the Downtown area. The civic centre was meant to be a hub for culture and commerce activities, and typically hosts conventions, weddings, celebrations of life, and retirement dinners. It also maintains partnerships with Douglas College, TransLink, and Metro Vancouver.

Some of the things you can find in the Anvil Centre include the New Westminster Museum and Archives, the New Media Gallery, as well as a Community Art Gallery.

The five questions presented to the councillors included:

• With consideration to the ways in which Anvil Centre currently offers core cultural services and conference and events services, does council envision additional ways that the facility could supplement, support and reflect the 2023-2026 New West strategic plan?

• In consideration of the changing demographics and increasing populations and density in the downtown area, would Council like staff to explore the allocation of additional, alternate or focused programming and resources for Anvil Centre?

• What reporting and communications methods would help Council and the general public better understand and appreciate the complexity and breadth of Anvil Centre operations?

• Does Council have any questions regarding the Anvil budget report from the May 8, 2023 Council meeting?

• During Council onboarding and the 2023 budget process, information was presented regarding Anvil Centre operations and budget. Are there questions that Council would like addressed or any gaps in information provided?

There were some overlapping themes and concerns that came up during the approximately one-hour discussion. This included supporting a variety of groups from planning an event to the execution of it, as well as figuring out how to consider both business and fiscal concerns.

At one point, Coun. Ruby Campbell talked about the potential need for better cross-departmental co-ordination.

“We have a festival team in our parks department…I was reading a little bit about amplifying city events,” she explained to the group. “I wanted to see how it works with parks and rec. For instance, if there’s a gap…so the city hasn’t received any event applications and there seems to be a pattern, maybe…we work with the parks team to see what we should be promoting.

“What is our fulsome events strategy? Not just for the Anvil Centre, but for our whole city?”

Like Coun. Campbell, Coun. Tasha Henderson wondered aloud if there might be a way to capture, in feedback, some of the comments she said she’d been hearing in the community about additional potential purposes for the Centre.

“It is the only community city-owned facility in the Downtown core—that I know of—and I think it’s important that we think of it that way when we’re thinking of its use right now. I hear almost every day from families that wish there was some sort of community recreational centre Downtown. I’m not suggesting that Anvil become a recreational centre, I just think we need to think really carefully about what our needs are,” explained Henderson, pointing to the city’s land constraints as an example.

Coun. Jaimie McEvoy brought up a similar point: along with recreational space, he said he’d been told by some residents in the community they were looking for space to carry out their hobbies—especially for those who might have a limited number of room in their homes, and/or may not even have a balcony as an option.

He also thought it’d be good to take a look at the Anvil’s use of social media.

“I went to the Anvil one day and I thought it was completely empty,” said McEvoy, who said upon inquiring, he was told there were 500 people behind a screen at an event happening steps away. “The Anvil is a vital place with a lot going on. We need to know that all the time, not just in council reports. I’d like to see social media, every day something’s posted that there a crowd there, or that the facility is being used for that day or something.”

While Mayor Patrick Johnstone appreciated all the ideas, he noted the importance of considering budget and resource constraints: the building is still going through about $2.7M in amortization annually.

“When we do take this conversation to the public around this, we do need to frame it a little bit around the costs…around cost subsidy model…for the programming people would like to see in this space,” he noted.

Heidi Hughes, the director of sales and marketing at the Anvil Centre, added that she understood the importance of looking at other potential uses for the centre. She noted that at the end of the day, there is also a business aspect to it.

“When we look at who we are serving in terms of the business side of Anvil Centre, the commerce side, we’re giving the businesses…local companies…places to do businesses and bring their teams.” Hughes said the space was also seen by many as professional setting as, prior to its construction, there were no similar options available to commerce style groups.

“I just don’t want that to get missed in the conversation. I completely understand the purpose of the workshop, and I’m 100% supportive. I just know that what we do in the conference centre also provides a service not only to the arts and culture community…but we really do work with all the major union groups, we work with all the major companies in New West, whether it’s TransLink—everybody.”

Gordon Duggan of the New Media Gallery chimed in, underscoring the need to remember individual patron needs. “When we’re talking about community, we seem to be talking about groups. And I just wanted to point out that the community, probably 65,000 members of the community, are not part of a group. And we deal with individuals, in the Anvil, we deal with individuals in the community on an ongoing basis.”

City staff are now in the process of putting a workshop agenda together for the meeting that will happen Aug.28.

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