The Yukon government is reviewing the three bids received to provide land in Whitehorse for a new convention centre.

The government put out a call in September for expressions of interest in providing land. The closing date was Oct. 14.

“We are meeting with each of the proponents to provide them with feedback on their proposals and discuss next steps,” Cameron Webber, a communications analyst with the Department of Tourism and Culture, explained in an email late last month.

“The department is also working to establish a joint committee with private sector representation to advance this project to the request-for-proposals stage and we hope to be able to communicate more in the coming weeks.”

The three bids received are from Canyon City Construction, the Yukon Arts Centre and the Yukon Convention Bureau Society.

Webber said the process going forward is to have discussions with all three proponents, then develop a request for proposals. All three proponents will be eligible to submit proposals, he said.

The matter of a new convention centre was raised briefly at the Nov. 21 city council meeting when Coun. Ted Laking asked what the city’s involvement is.

City manager Jeff O’Farrell said the city’s role is very limited.

City administration does not have a mandate around the convention centre, and there is no agreement between the city and the Yukon government, he said.

Key players in the tourism business told the Star in late November the need for a new convention centre is absolutely clear.

Neil Hartling, chair of the Tourism Industry Association of the Yukon, said the issue of need is not new.

There have been a number of studies, and there was a promise in the last election, he said.

Hartling said what was known as the convention centre beside the High Country Inn – formerly the Whitehorse Lions Pool – was not a true convention centre.

The former pool was too small, he said, adding that it was a meeting hall.

Hartling said as nice as the Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre is, it too does not offer all the attributes of a convention centre, and there’s also the factor the cultural centre can be in use by the First Nation for its own needs.

What is needed, he said, is a larger facility with a larger seating capacity, that includes break-out rooms and a banquet facility.

Whitehorse needs to be compet
itive if it wants to attract the larger conventions, he said.

Hartling said the city needs more hotel rooms but it will not attract more hotels without a convention centre. It’s the chicken-and-egg scenario, he said.

Right now, Hartling said, every hotel room in Whitehorse has been booked for the summer, and it’s been that way for quite a while.

“If someone is interested in investing in a hotel in Whitehorse, they want to know they can keep it busy all year-round,” he said.

Rich Thompson of Northern Vision Development agrees, and he too sees it as a chicken-and-egg situation, although Northern Vision Development is moving forward with plans to build a new hotel.

“We can’t keep building hotels if you cannot fill them up in the shoulder season, and you are not going to fill them up in the shoulder season without having a convention centre – chicken and egg,” the chief executive officer told the Star.

Thompson, whose company already owns several hotels in the Yukon, said it would be good to have movement in the direction of a new convention centre.

“It’s an opportunity for a capital city in the North to have a proper convention centre,” he said.

Thompson said the private sector is not expecting the government to fund the entire cost’ that there may be ways for the tourism industry to contribute, perhaps by adding a room tax to their hotels.

Northern Vision Development has already announced it’s planning a 115-room Hyatt Place hotel on Main Street, on the large parking lot next beside the Best Western.

The chief executive officer said they hope to have a contract signed with the modular building supplier in a week or so. The contract with a general contractor to build the hotel is expected to follow soon after that, he said.

Thompson said they hope the new hotel would be open by the spring of 2025.

The design work, he noted, is largely complete.

Casey Prescott, the arts centre’s executive director, said they responded to the call for expressions of interest to provide land because there is room on their existing site that could accommodate a new centre.

“We are currently in the middle of a feasibility study to determine if that is even feasible to do,” he said. “The feasibility study will be completed in January.”

The study is intended to provide the information they require to make a final decision whether to proceed to the next step, he said.

Tourism and Culture Minister Ranj Pillai said in an interview late last month they’re looking at a convention centre large enough to have between 700 and 1,000 guests for a sit-down dinner.

He said the Yukon wants to be in a position by next summer to submit a funding application to the federal government for financial support.

In order to do that, Pillai acknowledged, they’ll need to have a pretty good idea of what they want to see in a convention centre so they can estimate a cost before submitting the funding request.

They want to apply for funding and get the new centre built as soon as possible, he said.

Federal Tourism Minister Randy Boissonnault, Pillai noted, was in the Yukon during the summer, visiting Whitehorse and Dawson City.

He said he has ongoing dialogue with Boissonnault and has reminded him a funding application is coming.