{"id":24221,"date":"2019-07-11T18:48:03","date_gmt":"2019-07-11T22:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=24221"},"modified":"2019-07-18T15:54:42","modified_gmt":"2019-07-18T19:54:42","slug":"cultural-centre-on-hunt-for-new-temporary-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/cultural-centre-on-hunt-for-new-temporary-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultural Centre on hunt for new temporary home"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Aurora Cultural Centre will be packing up and taking\nthe show on the road beginning in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The popular organization, which calls the Church Street\nSchool home and recently launched its tenth anniversary season, is on the hunt\nfor new spaces to continue programming after learning they will have to vacate\nthe historic building while construction on Library Square takes place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suzanne Haines, Executive Director of the Aurora Cultural\nCentre, says they were hoping to be able to operate out of their long-time home\nfor the duration of the redevelopment, but recently learned that was not\npossible due to accessibility concerns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOriginally, the conversation was to see if we can stay\nin this space and that was the intention,\u201d says Ms. Haines in the first of a\ntwo-part interview with The Auroran. \u201cWe tried really hard, the Town thought of\na number of different ideas [of] how we can to move people through the building\nand how to be here while having the construction happening next door. The\nconsideration at the end of the day was we actually can\u2019t, we won\u2019t be able to\noperate here.\u201d
\nThe issue is work that will take place to connect the Church Street School,\nwhich is also home to the Aurora Museum & Archives, to the new building\napproved as part of the Library Square concept. If all goes according to plan,\nthe new building will be connected to the heritage building where the back\nstairs and elevator currently sit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this access out of the question, the only entrance\nand exit to the building will be through the familiar red doors facing Church\nStreet, but this entrance is not fully accessible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe won\u2019t have a way of getting people who need\naccessibility access to the second floor or into the basement,\u201d Ms. Haines\nexplains. \u201cOnce the stairwell is gone, it is the same issue. Our iconic red\ndoors are lovely, but that is our only egress. There is an egress on the lower\nfloor, but without an elevator we don\u2019t have a way to get people out. It became\nan issue of whether or not you\u2019re allowed to occupy a space like that and that\nis not the case.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than see this as a setback, the Aurora Cultural\nCentre is looking at this as a net positive and is determined to keep\nprogramming going on schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Temporarily vacating the space will allow the Town to\ncarry out scheduled infrastructure upgrades to the building, including\nimprovements to flooring, without disrupting any programming, she says, and by\nthe time they are able to return to Church Street after an estimated two years,\nthey will be ready to occupy a building that will serve their needs well beyond\nthe next decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A temporary move, she adds, will also help fulfil a goal\nof the Aurora Cultural Centre\u2019s Strategic Plan to take more programming out\ninto the wider Aurora community \u2013 but now that the move is confirmed, the big\nquestion is where?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of this has moving parts because not all the players are in place,\u201d says Ms. Haines. \u201cWe\u2019re programmed out until August of 2020. We know in the original timeline that went forward in March that it was intended to be spring of 2020 when construction would start, but we don\u2019t know where that is or whether that is taking this part off. We\u2019re hopeful to still be here until at least June, but we don\u2019t know. We don\u2019t have a final [timeline] until that construction company really sets out that plan. I can appreciate that that information really isn\u2019t known, but all of this really started in March. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGetting out of this space and into the community [will\nenable us] to create new partnerships we didn\u2019t have before in new spaces.\nThese are new partnerships that will be with and for the community, that will\ncontinue with us. I think it can only be a positive and it feels like a win-win\nto me. From the live performing arts side, the concerts, from the acoustical\nspace, there are quite a few spaces that might be great for acoustics when you\ndon\u2019t have to amplify it. We are going to try and find, in terms of the\nclassical music programming, looking or a space where all four of those\nconcerts can [happen] every year. In terms of the other concerts, I am really\nintrigued to try and find space that might be unique for it. You have seen\nconcerts and theatrical programming happening around Town, so they exist, it is\njust whether it is the best timing, fit, and space for us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRest assured, these opportunities are all very exciting\nand will get us out there into the community, which is great.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While locations are yet to be finalized, what is clear is\ntheir intention is to keep all programming within the boundaries of Aurora.\nThis, she says, will be accomplished through securing \u201cnon-traditional\u201d spaces\nthat might actually create new opportunities for programming. This, she says,\nis exciting for both her and the Aurora Cultural Centre Board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is about collaboration, it is about partnership, it\u2019s\nabout growing something, where that is not always the way change can be\nperceived,\u201d says Ms. Haines of the Library Square project. \u201cChange can be scary\nfor some, but that is not how we\u2019re viewing it here. It is exciting and\nrewarding for staff and we hope that people will come and find us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next Week: Miss Haines shares the Aurora Cultural\nCentre\u2019s support and excitement for the Library Square project and outlines the\nopportunities the results might bring to both the Centre and the community as a\nwhole. <\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir The Aurora Cultural Centre will be packing up and taking the show on the road beginning in 2020. The popular organization, which calls the Church Street School home and recently launched its tenth anniversary season, is on the hunt for new spaces to continue programming after learning they will have to vacate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2019-07-11-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6iF","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-11 09:53:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}