The Maritime Museum of British Columbia has found a new interim location beside the Victoria Conference Centre while it continues to search for a permanent home on the water in downtown Victoria.
This August, the museum will open in a 3,000-square-foot City-owned store frontage on Douglas Street that will include public gallery space for exhibits, programming, events, research and administration.
“We’re looking forward to higher traffic, better visibility, more flexible space for public programming, and opportunities for more frequently revolving exhibitry. Our eye is on the ball in terms of getting a waterfront, permanent home for the museum. We’ve narrowed our search down for now,” says Jamie Webb, President of The Maritime Museum.
Webb is hopeful the museum will eventually secure its top choice of locations.
“The ideal location would be the CPR Steamship Building on Belleville. We feel that the vacant lower level of that location would be the ideal landing pad for the rebirth of a waterfront maritime museum. There’s a dock that would be great for complimentary programming,” notes Webb.
The City will be supplying the museum with enhanced signage and wayfinding in the downtown area to ensure the interim location is well visible and accessible to the public.
Mayor Lisa Helps says “we are excited about the new possibilities the museum can bring to our growing downtown cultural precinct that offers a world-class selection of museums, art galleries and cultural experiences.”
“We’re really looking forward to opening the new space sometime in mid to late August. In the meantime, we are still offering our walking tours to the public during our closure. Information about our tours can be found here: https://mmbc.bc.ca/tours/. We will also continue running our live virtual tours and will be releasing our Maritime Minute videos. To catch those, follow us on social media,” says Maritime Museum Executive Director Brittany Vis.
The museum’s last day at their current Nootka Court location will be July 17. The current exhibit, “The SS Valencia, a Theatre of Horror” runs until closing and then will reopen in the new location in August once the move is complete.
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