Login / RegisterVancouver architect Bing Thom opposes B.C. Place casino expansion
Renowned Vancouver architectBing Thom has added his voice to those opposing a mega-casino planned for the land adjacent to B.C. Place.
“Vancouver can’t forever be seen to be playing to its tourism angle,” Thom said. “We’re forgetting that we have a city here, we have citizens that don’t want Vancouver to be a bigger version of Whistler. That’s been some of the argument for why we would have a casino—we’ll get a lot more tourist dollars.”¦We’re becoming a retirement and a tourist city, and that is not what I would like Vancouver to become. And the casino is just playing into that.”
In March 2010, Premier Gordon Campbell announced plans for a $450-million entertainment complex attached to B.C. Place that will comprise a relocated Edgewater Casino and two hotels. An application from B.C. Pavilion Corporation for the rezoning necessary to build the complex goes to a Vancouver council hearing next Thursday evening (February 17), and opposition to the plan has been mounting throughout the arts community.
Thom will speak about the casino development at a public rally and forum scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday (February 9) at the Chinese Cultural Centre (50 East Pender Street). The event is sponsored by the Alliance for Arts and Culture, among other organizations.
The Alliance and the B.C. Association for Charitable Gaming have joined forces in pressing council to suspend all gaming expansion in the city until the province abides by, or renegotiates, a 1999 memorandum of agreement with the BCACG stipulating that one third of gaming revenues go to the nonprofit sector.
On February 1, councillors passed an amended version of a motion brought forward by COPE councillor Ellen Woodsworth, resolving, among other things, that the city will call for a review of public gambling in the province of B.C. and that council will support the B.C. Association for Charitable Gaming’s call to the auditor general to investigate and review the province’s obligations to charities regarding gambling revenues.
Woodsworth said the advocacy work of the Alliance and the BCACG helped her come to the decision to draft the motion. “I’ve been really, really concerned about the situation in the city, in the cuts to nonprofits and the arts,” she said. “It seems to me that these are critical organizations to the well-being of Vancouver, making Vancouver the number-one city in the world, and they’ve been decimated.”
While the Alliance’s executive director, Amir Ali Alibhai, said the organization is not taking a stand on the casino development in particular, he noted: “We’re certainly working with a coalition of organizations that are opposed to the casino for perhaps different reasons than we might be, but we’ve found common ground, in that they also recognize the inherent rights of charities and not-for-profits, and that is one of the issues that’s important to the broader group as well.”
Thom said he was concerned that the public had not been properly involved in the decision to build the complex. “We’ve never had a discussion whether or not we wanted this casino,” he said. “It just got dropped on us as another gift, and I think that’s been part of the problem. In the past decade in Vancouver we get these gifts given to us by politicians that are not well thought through.”¦I don’t think there are free gifts given.”
Sunset Community Centre
Central City Shopping Centre, SFU campus
Aberdeen Centre
Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at UBC
False Creek Yacht Club
The Pointe condominium
Pacific Canada Pavilion, Vancouver Aquarium
Bing Thom Architects also won the 2010 Architectural Firm Award, among numerous other accolades. I found that in 2 minutes of Googling.
Here's his website: http://www.bingthomarchitects.com Check it out for yourself.
"We’re becoming a retirement and a tourist city, and that is not what I would like Vancouver to become." - why do i care what YOU want Vancouver to become? You can talk about how you think it should LOOK.
There is a perfectly good casino in Vancouver. It already went bankrupt once, which gives some indication of the level of local demand. I.e. not very high.
That leaves tourism. But Vancouver doesn't have an identity as a gambling mecca. Chinese people will go to Macau and Singapore before they will come here as tourists to gamble. The business economics just carry a lot of inherent risks--and who is going to carry the can if Edgewater goes down again?
And there is still a lot of money sloshing around behind the scenes--public money. The BC Lottery Corp has plans to spend $350 million on capital spending in the next three years, and they don't own any bricks and mortar gaming facilities.
How much of that $350 million is like the $400 million that was secretly passed to private casino developers over the last few years?
Transparency please! Let's open the books and get a full accounting of all tax incentives, subsidies, payments, and all other financial dealings before we sign off on this thing.
Full policing reports--real ones--on what the security measures inside casinos are going to be. How exactly BC Lottery Corporation plans to clean up its HORRIBLE record on money laundering. How the casinos plan to get on top of and control the rampant loan-sharking that goes on inside.
We are sleep-walking into this thing.
Wow, thanx for reminding us, Binger. That was a close one!
- "non profits and the arts make Vancouver the number one
city in the world"
Yeah, no self esteem problem there.
- Aren't these guys basically saying "pay us or we won't support your project"?
Tell you what, we won't pay you and you don't support us. Works for me!
- "the inherent right of charities and not-for-profits"
Well you surely have the right to oppose whatever you want, but the
idea that your support must be bought seems a bit gimme-gimME...
- And after all that, he blows up the very angle these groups are taking
by saying "I don't think there are free gifts given".
Yes, Binger, you got that right. There are no free gifts.
Good for you.
120 is less than the hundreds if not thousands of dogs, cats and hockey players registered as BC Liberal members.
120 is more than the one person making most of the comments here who has yet to declare whether 'he' supports the Campbell Casino which not only provides a large venue for money laundering but gives the launderers a nice place to stay.
Just who is the "we" he is claiming to represent?
Does Lawson claim to represent the 600,000 residents of Vancouver who he claims half go to Casinos?
Funny thing is, 25% of residents living in Vancouver would not be able to go into Casinos as they are not permitted being under legal age.
Is Lawson the lone wolf here supporting the Casino? If he is he would fit in nicely with the company want to build and operate the casino. This company has an interesting history when it comes to siting casinos in the US.
It is important that architects of his caliber comment on the vision for Vancouver. It may counter some of the "junk" develpers and Lieberals are handing out.
For a city to be great it doesn't need casinos. It needs people, arts, offices, factories, schools, parks, children. To become Vegas North is no great asperation and it certainly won't bring many benefits to the people who live in the Lower Mainland. The casinos will not be bringing high paying jobs, its a service industry.
The casinos of course in B.C. are a great way to launder money criminals need to "clean" and of course if the Lieberals and their friends want to help them.......
I do hope more architects and artists make their opinions public. it is such discussions which make a city better.
Like, just how many great cities of the world are know for their casinos?
Cities are know for their business, arts, theatre, painting, old buildings, their people, but face it Vegas has never been classed as one of the great cities of the world and neither would a Vegas North.
But these aren't the people who will be gambling---and losing---at this new revenue whorehouse. It will be the locals---'cause those real estate tourists aint interested in nickel slots!
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