City Hall moving to Whalley

It was a debate that’s been going on for a couple years now – whether or not to move City Hall to Surrey City Centre, an area being planned as the region’s “second downtown”.

The back and forth began when the City began researching options for upgrades to City Hall. At the time, I recall Judy Higginbotham supporting the move to City Centre. However, due to fiscal conservatism, the decision was made to make structural upgrades to the current City Hall at King George and Hwy 10.

Now it seems as though the Mayor has backtracked on her position against the move – and not at the best of times either, now that all the upgrades have been completed and paid for…

During her State of the City address, Dianne Watts said:

We have limitless potential to create a visionary Downtown Core.  To do this, the City needs to demonstrate its own commitment by moving City Hall to our City Centre.  By relocating City Hall, we will be demonstrating our faith in the future of our Downtown Core to investors, sending the message that not only is Surrey’s City Centre a good investment, but it is also the future of the region.

Apparently, according to this article by Vancouver Sun reporter Frances Bula, famed architect Bing Thom had been pushing Watts to “make the move”. What he understood was that private developers were not going to invest in the City Centre without any major public investment first.

To that end, Surrey hasn’t done much – they’ve reduced area crime, and redevelopped Holland Park. There’s been a plan to build a new rec centre and a new major library, but no funding has been in place for either project.

So, as a catalyst for move office and commercial development in the City Centre, Watts reviewed her previous stance and now supports the move of City Hall to Whalley.

We’ll soon see if this all pans out…