The Maritime Museum of B.C. Society board reviewed short-term options Tuesday on how to remain viable with a possible storefront while moving its collection out of Bastion Square and into storage.
“We steered away from the long term because unless we convince the province otherwise, we need to be out of there by September,” said museum board president Clay Evans.
An emergency board meeting was called after the B.C. government announced Friday that the Maritime Museum of B.C. and the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority failed to reach a deal to move the museum to the waterfront CPR Steamship Terminal from Bastion Square.
On Tuesday night there was barely time to express frustration and anger over the decision as board members scrambled to put in place plans for a downtown storefront location to keep the society alive — perhaps housing the museum’s smaller exhibits, research elements, and core books from the library, Evans said.
“It’s not a museum, it’s more of a storefront for the society,” Evans said. “It allows us to carry on with research and outreach programming.”
A 3,600 square-foot location has not been disclosed pending signing of a lease, the price of which is very reasonable, Evans said.
As well, the board discussed how it will financially and physically move some of the mammoth pieces in its collection — Tilikum, a 30-foot Nuu-chah-nulth cedar dug-out canoe, for example.
The bulk of the collection will go to the old B.C. Systems Corporation building at 4000 Seymour St., off Cloverdale Avenue in Saanich, provided by the province.
The province says it has been paying about $10,000 a month in “bridge financing” for staff and storage of the museum's artifacts. The government said that financing will end Sept. 30.
Evans said the move will cost in the neighbourhood of $90,000 to $100,000.
A wall had to be removed to get the canoe into its Bastion Square location and the same will have to be done to remove it, Evans said. And new shelving at a cost of more than $25,000 will be needed to store the collection, he said.
“The $10,000 per month is being used for staff support for preparing and packaging the collection for the move, not for the estimated $90,000 to a $100,000 it will cost for movers and shelving,” Evans said.
The government, through Shared Services B.C., owns the museum's existing home in the old courthouse at 28 Bastion Square, which closed last October due to safety concerns. The museum must vacate that space by Sept. 30 to allow for repairs.
Evans said the society fixed its sights on the Steamship Terminal location because it was the most immediate, logical and profitable option and it was sitting empty ready to use.
For the province to say there were other similar and viable options isn’t true, Evans said.
Citizens’ Services Minister Amrik Virk, whose staff had been assisting with negotiations, said the museum and harbour authority, as landlord, were unable to agree on a lease after nine months of talks.
The government said the museum couldn’t cover the cost of the $1 million in upgrades needed to prepare the bottom floor of the four-storey Steamship Terminal for the museum’s collection.
— With files from Times Colonist
