Seismic instability raises questions over VAG site yet again

A year ago, I wrote a short Arts Note about the seismic instability in the proposed new Vancouver Art Gallery site in False Creek.

UBC engineering professor Peter Byrne told me the land in False Creek was essentially "bad ground".

Now reports have emerged that council is pressing the VAG to make a decision regarding the site, and that geotechnical surveys have revealed the site to require special construction.

This shouldn't come as a surprise, although the costs associated with such a construction may well be.

It looks as though Premier Gordon Campbell's big announcement that land at the Plaza of Nations was being offered to the VAG did not come without its price, and the gallery may be forced to turn its nose up at the offer.

Six months before Campbell's surprise announcement, the VAG went public with plans to relocate to the former bus-depot site behind the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, at the intersection of Cambie and West Georgia streets.

That plan may yet be revived.

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