FIFA Granville Street Activation Grant

Thank you. Okay. This is, I think, an exciting morning for our city. As you heard last week, this summer, the city, in partnership with our our friends and partners at the Downtown Vancouver BIA, will be transforming Granville Street into a fun and vibrant pedestrian zone. So between June 11th and July 20th, when Vancouver's hosting the FIFA World Cup, the Granville Pedestrian Zone will welcome residents and visitors to a people-first street that supports local businesses and creates a dynamic and family-friendly destination. that will showcase Vancouver and enhance the tournament experience. So this will be five blocks of the Granville Street pedestrian zone, and it will feature additional public seating, expanded patios, merchandise vendors and food options, live music and cultural activations, and lots of placemaking and selfie spots for the selfie crowd. And I know our first speaker today is going to share some details on the different themes of each one of those blocks. So downtown Vancouver is going to lead the programming and activation and the placemaking to help the pedestrian zone come alive. And the city is going to work in partnership and provide additional public seating, community and business activations, and enhanced sanitation. This will be a free activation. It'll be five weeks long. And it's going to allow everyone in the city to participate in the excitement of hosting FIFA and the soccer tournament. and also support our downtown businesses on Granville Street. So the motion is calling for a $300,000 one-time grant to the downtown Vancouver BIA to be funded from the city's financial reserves. And that is intended to complement the BIA's significant financial contribution to making this happen. and help offset some costs around activation, placemaking, beautification, microcleaning, et cetera. So I hope council will support this and give Vancouverites a fun and free pedestrian zone this summer on Granville Street. Thank you.

Thanks. I'd like to congratulate...

Congratulations, Downtown Van BIA, for all your hard work, and this is, I think, going to be a really fun... amazing experience for visitors and Vancouverites alike and it's especially useful for the downtown residents who will be impacted by road closures and a little bit of inconvenience is something that is fun that they're within walking distance of. I'm sure it will be amazing for the business people as well. And I also want to thank the City of Vancouver staff and consultants that have been working on this. I'm really glad it's free, especially given that game tickets are unaffordable for almost all Vancouverites and it's a good supplement to the fan zone as well. I am disappointed that this was announced prior to this meeting where approval for the money is being sought. I am disappointed that this expenditure wasn't included in the budget that we so recently passed. I'm also really looking forward to us using this opportunity as an incredibly useful pilot for the long-term changes that are contemplated in the Granville Entertainment District, particularly the ones relating to diversion of public transit, which is going to potentially have a negative impact on... transit riders so this is a short trial where we can I think that we should be investing staff time in assessing what the impacts are for transit riders and other members of the community impacted by the changes and learn lessons that we can use both in implementing more more effectively our proposed bus lanes. You know, we're going to do this quickly and it shows that it can be done quickly. But really listen to transit riders and pedestrians and other people that are impacted by changes to minimise that when the long-term changes are made. So, again, thank you for your work and congratulations, and I will be voting in favour of this. I just wish I was voting in favour of this before last week's announcement. Thanks. Okay, thanks. Councillor Meiszner.

Thank you. I have an amendment. We had a discussion with the – or I had a discussion with the Deputy City Manager this morning. This is just – to add delegated authority. So it's just a simple amendment to add E and F. Okay.

Thanks. Thanks to our speakers today and thanks in particular to Jane Talbot from Downtown Van for outlining and giving us a preview of some of the exciting activations that are going to be happening on Granville Street and for your ongoing stewardship and care for our downtown core. It's deeply appreciated. This idea around providing more support to Downtown Van to execute this has really come out of ongoing discussions that several councillors have been having with Downtown Van around the activation. And this funding, this eligible funding, additional funding, will be used to offset additional costs related to activation, placemaking, beautification, marketing, and microcleaning, and enhanced stewardship. As you can imagine, this is not a simple thing to do, to close down five blocks and program them for an event as large as FIFA when we're expecting hundreds of thousands of people in our city. And I'll just remind my councillors that I was... thrilled to support the emergency motion yesterday for a car-free day. And I also feel that this is very worthy of support as well. This is a way to ensure that Vancouverites who, you know, may not be able to get a ticket to FIFA, the tickets are very expensive, that they can still participate in the tournament and the excitement. It makes me think about 2010 and the Winter Olympics and all the activations and excitement there was in downtown Vancouver. So really hoping for council support on this really exciting placemaking initiative this summer. Thank you.

Nothing further to add, but I hope Council will support this exciting activation.

Thanks. Councillor Bligh.

Thanks very much. I have a lot to say to this, but I'm in an airport departure lounge, so I'll keep it very brief. I just have a point of information to you, Chair, to the mover of the motion. In exploring this activation and single source funding request, were there any conversations that you had with Gastown BIA or Hastings Crossing BIA as two examples of sort of adjacent to the stadium and also looking to, particularly Gastown, of course, with their Water Street closure and pilot. So that's my first point of information.

Yeah, please go ahead, Councillor Meiszner.

I haven't had any specific conversations with those two BIAs in relation to this activation, but I was very engaged on the Gastown pedestrian zone last year, regularly meeting with the BIAs, the BIA rather, to hear their learnings about what worked and what didn't. And we made many adjustments last summer, as you know, Councillor Bligh, to make that pedestrian zone in Gastown more successful. But I know our FIFA secretariat, the team working on the World Cup here at the city, are regularly engaging with both the Hastings Crossing BIA and the Gastown BIA. And I would imagine that many of the learnings would be incorporated into the Granville Street pedestrian zone.

Okay, great. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, Councillor. I just don't have a lot of time. And another point of information, I just wondered if you had engaged with them on this particular sort of BIA activation for a core area related to FIFA. My other question is a point of information through your chair to the city manager related to, I think it's $5 million that we have as a city to spend from, you know, as part of the FIFA... accounting, if you will. Can that money, can this single source be funded through that? I think it's $5 million, so I'll leave it with the City Manager to clarify any accuracies there.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, I'm a bit disappointed that Emily, I fully support it. Congratulations to Downtown Van, of course. I agree, you know, while FIFA has really no parallels drawn in terms of what the Olympics was, it's a very, very different tournament. in many respects, the public viewing and the activation that brings in people who can enjoy the tournament without feeling like they're missing out on games, I think is important. And that did happen in the 2010 Olympics. But I just, I'm disappointed that this has not really gone as far as, you know, just kind of identifying. I think there's a lot more we should be doing as a city to make sure that these activations are spread out amongst many areas that really at the end of the day, people want to go to their tourism magnets and at the same time are desperate really for support from this council in terms of being able to... you know, have a really fulsome and robust sort of plan to help the small business sector in hospitality, food and beverage, and then all the adjacent shops where when we drive traffic to those areas. So I think there's one thing to activate and there's another thing to really feel like we've done a great job in supporting our local small businesses so that they can benefit from this tournament as well. So perhaps that's going to be a follow up to this. It's really what was identified in the motion I brought forward two weeks ago, and it still remains a massive gap. So I support Downtown Band. I support this funding. But, you know, what if $200,000 for Heathen Crossing and Gaff Town could really mean that they could, too, start to plan and activate for those areas? So those are just my comments. I'm going to support this today, but that's really where my mind goes. So I'll be thinking about... And I will just say very quickly that it would be very helpful to learn more about whatever funds the city has to support activation, beautification. It's identified. I've heard about it. I know that the city manager, Donny Van Dyke, has talked about it and mentioned it. So to the deputy city manager, if there's some looking into that and reporting back, that would be very helpful. So I'll leave it there. Thanks.

Thanks, Councillor. Okay, Councillor Frye.

Yeah, I'll start by just saying I support the intention of this motion. I do take some issue with how this process unfolded. I think that, to Councillor Bligh's point, I think... This could have been a broader exploration that was covered. I mean, we all knew that FIFA was coming. We all knew that there was an interest to do broader activations and fan fests throughout the city of Vancouver, not just in the prescribed areas of the last mile and the fan fest. And I think that to Councillor Maloney's point, to find out about this through press release that we weren't really invited to didn't speak to the right process, certainly that we haven't yet approved it. And so last week there was a press release to talk about this activation, yet we're only just voting on it today. So that presupposes a lot, and I think that's... not the appropriate process. And I think, you know, more broadly, there are going to be other activation potentials that should have been really, frankly, this all should have been figured out in advance. But I do recognize that the situation demands an ad hoc response, and we definitely have this opportunity before us, and I do support this. I think to the speaker, Tanya Webking's points as well, there is a degree of sort of... financial mismanagement from how this council has approached the zero means zero budget and then turned around and keeps coming up with new fundings for new ad hoc considerations that sort of belies, I think, the spirit of which the zero means zero was introduced and the austerity that's been forced upon many other departments across our city and other stakeholders in our city. All that said, to depoliticize this for a moment, I think this is a fantastic activation. I really like what is being put forward. I think we are all collectively interested to see the revitalization and enhancement of Granville Street, and this is going to really deliver what I think has been lacking in the FIFA planning so far, which is really recognizing this as the center of town, the destination for many visitors and locals who are coming downtown, Want to enjoy the activation. I'm super looking forward to grabbing a selfie under a mushroom in the Enchanted Forest. I can tell you that much. But I do don't love the process that got us here, but I support the work, and I look forward to this activation on Granville Street. Thank you.

Thanks, Counselor. Counselor Dominado.

Thank you, Chair. I'm happy to comment on the motion for us. And before I get into the meat of the motion, I thought I would echo the comments of my colleague, Councillor Meister, who said at the outset that he was pleased to support the urgent motion yesterday to support car-free days. And since it's been leveled a few times, this is an extraordinary process of looking at funding an event for FIFA activation on Granville Street. I would note that I also learned about the Car Free Day urgent motion on social media. So if we're going to be leveling criticisms across the room about how people are learning about things, that's how I learned about that one. But speaking to the motion, I'm incredibly pleased to see this come forward. I think it's really a testament to the downtown Vancouver BIA, who I know took a lot of initiative around this and has a proven record of delivering activations in the city. And Granville Street really is the heart of downtown. And what I think is really important as we consider supporting this activation in advance for FIFA is that people are looking for places to gather and to convene. enjoying the energy and enthusiasm of the event, just as we did with the Olympics. And people are also looking for free events. They're looking for family-friendly activations. And I was really impressed with the visuals that we saw of what you're planning. And having been to other activations on Granville Street, I know it will be a success. And I think this is certainly worthy of our time and energy and investment is to make this great. And so thank you to Councillor Meiszner for bringing it forward. Thank you to Jane for speaking today and representing the downtown Vancouver BIA, which I know has really channeled a ton of energy into what this will be. And I know that it will be a fantastic activation. So happy to support it. And thank you both for bringing it forward.

Thanks, Councillor. Councillor Maloney.

Thanks. I have a point of information for the mover of the motion through the chair, please. Just while we're on the topic, I'm super interested to know whether it's planned that the Gastown pedestrian area is going to operate the same amount or more this summer during FIFA and across the whole summer?

Is that a question for me? Yes. Okay. I'm not sure. I don't know why you presume I would have that information, but I would encourage you to connect with staff and work through the details.

It was meant to be a friendly question, but don't worry about it. I'll send an email to staff. Also, since it was raised, the majority on council have moved member motions for $6,300,000 worth of unplanned expenditure from reserves and Councillor Orr and I in response moved a member motion for $30,000. So $6,300,000 versus $30,000. In response, I think, given that the majority on council was responsible for a purported zero means zero budget, it's a quite different kettle of fish. And also, I was very grateful and pleased to have a unanimous response yesterday, vote for saving car-free days. Thanks very much.

Hey, thanks, Councillor. Councillor Meiszner.

Yeah, just to respond to Councillor Maloney's comments, I'm a huge supporter of Gastown. I lived in Gastown for five years, and I also want to see another really successful pedestrian zone in Gastown, and I'm really looking forward to the longer-term public spaces plan that's going to really revitalize Gastown. So I'm ready to have that conversation and am very supportive of Gastown. On the need to be nimble, As mentioned, Car Free Day was an emergency motion yesterday. Happy to support that, just as I am very happy to provide this extra support to Downtown Van to activate Granville Street and offer that family-friendly, free option for people during FIFA. And I just wanted to address a comment around... the press conference that we had with Downtown Van, I believe it was last week. That was a city-hosted press conference. All councillors were invited to that press conference. An email was sent out several days before to RSVP, to any councillor from any political party, if they were interested in participating. And my recollection is actually that Councillor Fry and Councillor Maloney were there. I saw them actually in the audience. And they were invited to come up to the front and celebrate this exciting pedestrian zone with all the council, but they declined that offer. So I just wanted to state that for the record.

Thanks, Councillor. Councillor Claussen.

Thanks very much. Thanks for this motion. And thank you for the speakers. And thanks to Downtown Van, who do an incredible job of stewarding amazing events. The Granville Block Party over the last couple of years has been one of the... highlights of the summer, and I think that what we're expecting to happen during FIFA with the fun free events that are going to be happening, this is something that I've been asking our staff about since early in this term, and I'm really pleased to see that we're going to be delivering that kind of downtown experience. I reminisce a lot about what happened during the 2010 games. I got very involved in it. And I remember watching the Golden Goal that was scored with Team Canada winning the gold in 2010 and asking my stepdad to drive me to the cannel line station. I was probably downtown within about 20, 30 minutes, right at the corner of Granville and Georgia. And the place was exploding in absolute glee over Canada's goal. People were dressed in red and white. The crowd, everybody was just crowded into that intersection waving Canadian flags. And I feel like that kind of incredible positive energy that we as a city showed the world is exactly the kind of experience that we're going to be seeing happen during FIFA. So I do believe that the bigger opportunity here is for us to really showcase ourself as an incredible city, an incredible destination. the very best of all the city hosts that will be running games in 2026 for the World Cup. And I know that the Granville experience is going to be a really big part of that. So I'm extraordinarily excited. for what's coming in a matter of just a few months, and so happy to support this, and I think it'll be in very, very capable hands with Downtown Vancouver Association leading the charge for what will be. one of the most memorable celebrations the city has ever had in its history. So very, very pleased to be supporting this. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor Clausen. Councillor Maloney.

Yeah, I want to acknowledge that I was invited to the event last week. However, because there was so little information made available to, I guess, councillors who are not, I was scrounging information for information about what the announcement was about on the morning and the day before. And I declined because of the lack of information of what the event was about to stand with the majority on council up at the podium, particularly given the regrettable distractions that did draw attention away from the incredible work of the downtown BIA and distracted the media available on the day. And I'm very glad that I wasn't standing up there given the direction of the media. And that's your time, Councillor Maloney. Sorry, I'm out of time, but I think I've made my point.

Okay, thanks. All right, so I'm going to call the vote. Click, please take us to the voting screen. And, Councillor, please register your vote. And we need eight votes. But this one's two-thirds because of this grant.

Can I have a vote assist in favour, please? It's Councillor Kirby, yeah?

Yeah, noted. Thanks, Councillor Kirby.