Keeping with my cut and paste tradition...an SP Editorial which may initiate some discussion:
Published: Thursday, April 26, 2007
Following is the viewpoint of the writer, a resident of Saskatoon.
Fate works in mysterious ways, so I'm wondering if now is the time to elaborate on an idea I and others proposed to council three years ago. We've had some serious setbacks lately but there might still be a way to make River Landing and Saskatoon the world-class destination centre it could be and should be.
So I suggest, again, to coin a phrase and a new name, that "The Saskatoon Mendel Public Gallery of Prairie and World Art" still could be and should be the missing piece of the puzzle we've been searching for.
As background, here's the most recent bad news. (Or could it be good news?)
First, River Landing now has no major attraction; Ellen Remai has decided not to build a mineral-spa hotel there.
Second, the city-owned Mendel continues to ask taxpayers for a great deal of money to expand its present site; even if we agree to pay another $4.5 million or so, it'll still be a minor gallery and one that has to charge admission fees to survive.
Third, Broadway, right across the bridges from River Landing, has just lost a major and top-quality Ken Achs/Karl Miller condominium.
Fourth, Cameco is apparently looking for new offices but council doesn't seem to want an office building as part of River Landing.
These things don't seem to be related but I think there's a window of renewed opportunity here. Often, in life, you have to go backward a few steps in order to go forward. So, to summarize, this is what I'd like to see council do.
Talk to Cameco to see if it might build or expand on the current Mendel site.
Talk, again, to the Mendel board and Mitchell family to try to persuade them to move the gallery's permanent collection of 5,000 paintings to River Landing as its much-needed "crown jewel," with the promise of greatly increased funding and a much larger and far superior gallery.
To access that funding and major-construction expertise, bring together a public-private partnership of city, provincial and federal governments -- and Saskatoon people such as Johanna Mendel-Mitchell, Ellen Remai, Ken Achs and Karl Miller, along with architects such as Mel Malkin, Phil Scott and Dave Edwards.
Design and build an architecturally aesthetic and unique highrise complex on the former Remai site, probably even larger than the proposed spa-hotel and possibly overlapping onto the "destination complex" site.
Make this complex a mix of hotel rooms, condominiums, retail spaces, lounges, restaurants, sidewalk cafes and so on. I think that the possible attractions in such a "people place" are almost limitless.
However, and most importantly, ensure that this complex is designed around and fully focused on a truly world-class gallery that the Mendel, without question, has the potential to be.
The gallery area, for example, should be spacious and have enough separate "rooms" so that the entire permanent collection is on display at all times -- and open without charge to the public for many hours each day.
In this regard, I don't think Saskatoon fully realizes what might constitute our greatest treasure. The fact is, we have more great artists and painters per capita than any other city in the world!
What other city has the streets of an entire suburb, in this case Erindale, named after them? Mulcaster, Bonli, Perehudoff, Cowley, Hurley, Bornstein, Lindner, Kenderdine, to name but a few.
So to appreciate the magnitude of our own city's and our own province's artistic accomplishments, I think we should keep in mind that the Mendel has a collection of about 3,000 of these great Saskatchewan paintings (along with 2,000 more, including some from the world-renowned Group of Seven).
But I think we should keep in mind, also, that the "Group of Saskatoon," to coin another phrase, one day will at least rival all these other acclaimed works of art.
As a postscript, however, there's a simpler solution -- simpler, but not quite as good. But if council remains convinced that a hotel is what River Landing really needs, then why not seek EOIs from companies that want to build an "art gallery hotel" instead of a "mineral spa" hotel?
Discuss this concept first with Ellen Remai and perhaps form a limited and therefore workable partnership. Remai doesn't have to spend an extra $15 million to access mineral springs which may or may not be workable. Saskatoon would use the money from the sale of the old Mendel site to fund the new gallery within the hotel complex -- we'd save $4.5 million there. Also, not having to pay for expansion on the old site, we'd continue to own and operate the new gallery within the hotel.
Finally, I think that "The Saskatoon Mendel Public Gallery of Prairie and World Art" can and will become known as one of the world's great galleries. That's precisely what we need to make River Landing and Saskatoon -- the kind of culturally and esthetically attractive destination centre that we want it to be and which it deserves to be.
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