The Maritime Museum of B.C. Society has finalized a lease for space in Nootka Court on Humboldt Street that will serve as an office, small exhibition area and gift shop.
The 3,600-square-foot space should be ready by early August.
Officials hope the storefront operation will allow them to maintain a presence for the museum, which has been forced to move out of its longtime home in Bastion Square.
“We can sort of regroup and look to the future,” said Clay Evans, chairman of the museum board.
The museum’s old site was closed in October due to safety concerns with the building, a 126-year-old former courthouse. Hopes of relocating to the waterfront CPR Steamship Terminal were dashed when negotiations with building landlord the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority hit an impasse in June. The provincial government, which was helping in negotiations, said the rent was more than the museum society could afford.
Museum officials hope the new space will be a temporary solution as they deal with various issues. A storefront location was in the plans, even if the museum society had been successful in relocating the facility to the CPR space, Evans said. “It would have taken a year to 18 months to get that space ready, so this was part of the plan regardless.”
Storage space for the museum’s artifacts has been secured in the provincial government’s former B.C. Systems Corp. building on Seymour Place. The museum has 10,000 square feet in the building and is allowed to use it for 10 years, Evans said.
He said a $49,000 matching grant has recently been received from the federal government for specialized storage needs.
The storage space is just what the museum needs now, Evans said. “In some ways it’s a good thing because even at Bastion Square we had significant storage issues and, of course, there it’s not really a climate-controlled space,” he said. “So the bulk of the small artifacts will go over to Seymour.”
The museum has 10,000 artifacts in its collection.
Evans said the Lindholms, a longtime Victoria family, donated $10,000 for preparations at the Nootka Court location, while developer Gerald Hartwig helped to make arrangements with Wottrich Holdings to secure the space at a reduced rate.
