Renegade Productions will meet with landlord and city officials to stave off potential closure
Important rehearsal and production space in Vancouver is in jeopardy as a result of the City of Vancouver's worries over the building's safety.
Renegade Productions Inc. operates the former Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company building at Main Street and East 2nd Avenue.
According to Renegade's founder, Jim Buckshon, city officials have not told him what the safety issue is.
"We didn't receive anything in writing," Buckshon told the Straight by phone. "We didn't receive a deficiency report."
On Tuesday (April 7) at 9 a.m., officials from Renegade and its landlord, Beedie Development Corp., and city staff will meet to discuss the issue.
The facility has been used by many well-known Canadian musicians, including Dan Mangan, Said The Whale, Hey Ocean!, Yukon Blonde, and Metric.
In addition, Buckshon said, many theatre groups use the 27,000-square-foot facility as rehearsal space. The Book of Mormon travelling show is due in next week to hold auditions. Theatre Under the Stars has booked space in the summer.
"There's really nowhere to go," he stated. "To be honest, I'm starting to think: do I have to move to Burnaby? Is this city not that supportive of the arts?"
He added that Renegade has never sought funding from the city. It just wants a chance to ask what the issues are so they can be addressed.
The building opened nearly a century ago and was occupied for decades by Watson Gloves.
"When we moved in, it was 2011," Buckshon said. "Playhouse Theatre Company occupied that building and they were having financial troubles. They were looking for a subtenant to help pay the rent."
Buckshon said that he had operated production space at five other locations since 1983, including on Hastings Street, Victoria Drive, and in Gastown.
"I've never had an injury in one of my properties," he stated. "We've never had a fire. We've never had a fatality. We run a safe building."
He noted that the building has a sprinkler system that has been tested. In addition, there are smoke and heat detectors that send signals to a monitoring system, which alerts the fire department.
"It is so sensitive nobody smokes in the building," Buckshon added.
The city declined the Straight's request for an interview.
Buckshon said city officials began scrutinizing the building in February.
"They pulled the floor plans and they found out that nobody has updated them since 1971," he revealed.
According to Buckshon, the city informed him that he needed to restore the building floor plan to what existed in 1971 or apply for permits by March 17.
"This letter came to us on February 23," he said.
He claimed that Watson Gloves and the Playhouse Theatre Company had adjusted the floor plan before his company moved into the space.
Buckshon also said that he submitted floor plans within 15 days after being told that this could be done without an architect for a development-permit application to proceed.
"We went to City Hall and they rejected it," he maintained. "They said, 'You need it done by an architect now.' We told them 'we were told we didn't need that done by an architect.' "
At that point, Buckshon asked for an extension. On March 25, city officials visited the building and conducted a plumbing, electrical, property-use, and building-code inspection, he stated.
Then he received a call from the city saying a notice would be posted on the property on April 7.
"Our building is generally quite safe," Buckshon insisted. "We have clear exits, front and back. Both floors are unobstructed. We've had Vancouver fire-prevention [officials] come in and tag all our extinguishers, check our batteries and our exit lights, [and] check our sprinkler systems."
Buckshon said that the city's phone call left him with the impression that he might have to shut down his business.
"We did send off an email to the mayor's office and to Coun. [Heather] Deal and to Deputy Mayor [Andrea] Reimer just to say 'do you know what's happening here?' Do you have any suggestions or advice how we can avoid this closure?'," Buckshon said.
The site is zoned M-2, which permits using the building for production and rehearsal space.
"It's not a conditional use—it's outright," Buckshon said. "We are not over any noise bylaw levels. I've measured them multiple times. We're not doing anything wrong."
Comments
4 Comments
Edward Bernays
Apr 6, 2015 at 8:11pm
Arts companies want to be considered serious professionals who are assets to the community until they run into financial or regulatory hurdles and then they want to be treated with kid gloves like they are endangered species or special needs children. Time to put on the adult pants, stop the heart strings lament and take care of your business. If most of arts organizations weren't simply make work projects for children of privilege I might reconsider. Sadly they continue to be playgrounds for privileged politically connected types who wallow in self congratulatory cultural regurgitation. The exceptions merely prove my point. Stand on your own feet occasionally like the rest of us.
Meatballs
Apr 6, 2015 at 9:23pm
Vancouver should seriously consider if it wants to be a bunch of namby-pamby condo dwellers who take offense to every slight inconvenience that city living offers and whom serve themselves up as a bunch of selfish hypocrites in the process. Or does it realize that in order to be a "world-class" city it needs these spaces and it's ongoing support of the arts? This totally reminds me of the bullshit the Biltmore put up with when they opened because their stage was like, 3 inches too high.
But it's now too late for me. I've recently moved to Burnaby and can honestly say the water here is just is fine. Vancouver can wallow in its puritanical vanity of what it thinks makes a great city. Too bad they're wrong.
Zoning
Apr 6, 2015 at 10:13pm
No mention here (or in the Globe coverage either) of the public performances?
Surely that's the issue that brought the City down on them. All the other stuff mentioned in this article has been going on for a decade and triggered precisely nothing. Public performances are the issue.
Futility
Apr 7, 2015 at 12:14pm
As much as I love and support the arts, I feel like this is a losing battle. This building is at ground zero for condo development and the building owners are developers!! It's a futile situation and I hope this group can find space anywhere, even if it's in Burnaby. Unfortunately all of Main St from 2nd Ave to 12th is slated for redevelopment in the Mt. Pleasant community plan, which means that many funky and unique businesses throughout the area will no longer exist. They'll be replaced by new condos with sterile and expensive businesses on the ground floor. Unfortunately even though the condo dwellers in the neighbourhood are young, they are mainly hipsters into craft beer and expensive, chic bikes than in to art.
The best of luck to Renegade and I hope they are able to find new digs in East Van, but unfortunately as soon as an area becomes 'hip', then the condos follow shortly after. Just ask the people who used to go to the Waldorf about it.