The City of New Westminster is putting out the welcome mat at the long-awaited opening of Anvil Centre.
Community members are invited to attend the grand opening of the new conference and cultural facility at 777 Columbia St. on Sunday. Prior to the grand opening, Anvil Centre was set to host its first conference on Thursday, a gala dinner on Friday and another conference on Saturday.
“I think this one is going to blow their socks off,” Mayor Wayne Wright told local media during a preview tour of the centre.
Anvil Centre includes conference space, a theatre seating up to 364 people, the city’s museum, a new media gallery, cultural studio space and the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame.
The first floor of Anvil Centre is home to a conference centre, the Tourism New Westminster visitor information centre and a boardroom that can serve as a bridal room.
“The bride and bridesmaids can come in here after the ceremony,” said Vali Marling, executive director of Anvil Centre. “They can refresh, they can have a glass of wine.”
Weddings are just one of the events scheduled to be held in Anvil Centre.
Heidi Hughes, director of sales and marketing for Anvil Centre, said more than 100 events are confirmed or in the works, ranging in size from 60 to 400 guests. Local community groups, major financial institutions, environmental companies, unions and crown corporations have booked space in the conference facility in the years ahead.
The glass windows facing Columbia Street have been designed so they’re able to open on to the street.
“One of the really cool things about the building that the clients love is that the entire front of the building opens up,” Marling said. “People can move in and out off of the sidewalk.”
That feature will come in handy in the future, when a BMW is wheeled into the building as part of one of the upcoming conferences.
Level 2 is home to a reading room, where people will be able to peruse some of the city’s archival materials such as maps, newspaper clippings and books – some dating back to the 1850s. A gift shop will also be located on the second floor in the future.
The third floor of Anvil Centre will be an action-packed place, as that’s where the state-of-the-art theatre, new media gallery, a community art space, New Westminster Museum and Archives, and Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame are located.
Rob McCullough, the city’s manager of cultural services, is excited to let the public in to the city’s new museum space in Anvil Centre.
“We go back 10,000 years with our collection, therefore we are taking our story back 10,000 years and connecting with some of the local First Nations in the content, and also bringing it forward to the early explorers – Simon Fraser, and then moving on to the Royal Engineers,” he said. “As you start with each gallery, it gets younger as you get toward the back. The idea is by the time you get to the end of the galleries, you’ve come to the end of the most recent history of New Westminster.”
While content in the final gallery ends in about 1985, the city’s ongoing history will play out in an area known as Gallery 7. It will feature exhibits that are relevant to today’s community and seek to engage discussion.
“In today’s world, we don’t just display things on a pedestal, we don’t just look at things in a case,” McCullough said. “We want people to engage with the content, to engage with the stories.”
A literary event will be the first cultural event in the theatre, which is equipped with seats that can be reconfigured in a number of ways depending on the need.
Level 4 houses a variety of studios (where course will be offered starting this month), music practice rooms, a dance studio and a new media studio space where people can work on projects. A “community living room” provides a space where people can interact with other community members, wait for children while they’re taking classes or take advantage of a Wi-Fi connection.
After touring the building for the first time in a few months, Wright said it’s “perfect.” While there’s an excitement that comes with opening a new facility, he said the important part is what comes later.
“It’s not how you start, but it’s how you finish,” he said. “We have to keep going and keep at it.”
Lisa Spitale, the city’s chief administrative officer, said the planning process considered how to make Anvil Centre a hub of energy and contribute to the downtown revitalization. With many of the spaces in the building designed to be flexible, she said it will be interesting to watch it unfold in the years ahead.
“I think this is going to be a really awesome place in about a year or two, when it starts gelling,” she said. “It will be really cool watching the evolution.”
Coun. Jonathan Cote, a member of the Anvil Centre task force, believes the civic centre and the office tower will have a huge impact on the downtown.
“That activity is going to spill out into the whole downtown neighbourhood and really transform the neighbourhood. It is going to be one piece of the puzzle of the changes we have seen in our downtown. I think New Westminster having a strong revitalized downtown is important. This centre and the building above it is one piece of the puzzle.”
