Arts centre, fossil museum, meeting site…

CBS councillors hear earful of ideas about what to do with the Manuels River Centre

By Craig Westcott

So many people turned up for the Town Hall session on the future of the Manuels River Interpretation Centre, organizers had to bring in more chairs for a two-hour event that featured nearly as many opinions as there were residents in the room.
The Town of Conception Bay South assumed ownership of the centre at the end of last year at the request of the volunteer board which had managed the complex since it was built in 2013 at a cost of some $8 million. Along with an unparalleled location on the banks of Manuels River, the building includes display and teaching rooms dedicated to the river’s famous fossils, a theatre, large meeting room, and full commercial kitchen with restaurant space.
The session was attended by all members of council.
“Manuels River has been an important part of our town, and we all consider it a gem, a jewel along our shore,” said Mayor Darrin Bent, who noted an online survey about the Centre generated over 1,400 responses, the most the Town has ever received on any subject.
“It’s one of those special places that you can’t invent,” said Bent. “And we believe it’s going to play an amazing role in the future of our town, and we expect to be able to ensure that it is available for all the residents of the town, young through senior, and will serve some of the needs that we may be lacking right now. I also want to note the transformation of this amazing facility is not going to be rushed. It’s going to be done methodically, and we’re going to take the time and budget it and we’re going to do it so that it’s done right.”
Bent stressed council also wants to ensure the “incredible history” represented in the centre, namely the fossils and the research around them, is protected, and will be included in whatever uses the Town has for the Centre.
“That’s very important to us, that we stay to the original goals set out by the Manuels River group in the beginning,” said the mayor.
Bent said council’s intention was to listen to all the views and incorporate them with all the other information it has gleaned, including from the survey and a focus group involving stakeholders.
The first person to offer a view was Glenda Bartlett, a painter and member of the artists collective Studio5. Bartlett said ever since she moved to CBS in 2001, councillors have been talking about the need for an arts centre.
“This is the perfect opportunity,” she said. “We need exhibit space, studio spaces, educational programs, and an artist in residence program, along with a bunch of other stuff… And if it’s going to be an arts centre, it’s important to include all the arts, visual arts, recording arts, written word, photography, fibre arts are big here in this community, quilting, rug hooking, embroidery, glass arts, fabric dyes, sculptures, etcetera. We have an amazing variety of artists in this community and it’s important that we bring them together.”
Writer and founding member of the Chamberlains Park Action Group, Geoff Kearley, sympathized with Bartlett’s ideas.
“I think the Manuels River Centre should be a cultural centre that includes all the arts,” Kearley said. “I’ve been hoping for that in the town for a long time, and I know something of that sort is coming with the new rec centre (planned for Kelligrews). But it would be nice to have a dedicated cultural centre, an arts centre in a location like Manuels River.”
Kearley said he would also like to see the Centre provide free meeting space for community groups, and for the cafeteria to remain.
“And I would like to see the fossil display stay there,” Kearley said. “It was the reason it was created. It should probably stay there in some form.”
Kearley’s points were echoed by many of the other speakers.
Local volunteer Susan Haskell suggested the centre could also be shared by faith-based groups, who are losing worship space in CBS.
“As well, I think it’s important to consider seniors programming at this site,” Haskell said. “There’s a real epidemic of isolation and loneliness among seniors… So, this could be a great opportunity.”
Scout Leader Darcy Hillier said CBS has two very large and thriving Scouts groups, and a number of Girl Guide groups, but leaders often have to turn away new members for lack of space to accommodate them.
“I love the idea of making it an arts centre, but perhaps that smaller room downstairs could be used as some kind of rentable room at a very discounted rate for these community youth groups and volunteer groups,” she said.
Businessman and Rotarian Doug Russell, who was involved in seeing the Centre come to fruition, said there’s no doubt the business model under which the centre operated was not financially feasible.
“As a result, I come here today to support the idea to rethink, remodel and repurpose the building in order to maximize its use as a multi-purpose community centre for the use of as many CBS groups as possible, including the arts community,” he said.
But Russell cautioned the Town about getting too ambitious, and warned against burdening CBS taxpayers with the upkeep of an expanded facility that it really shouldn’t take on.
“All the other Arts & Culture Centres are owned and subsidized by the Province,” he pointed out.
Fellow businessman and Rotarian Jerry Young suggested the centre should be guided, not by the Town itself, but by a subsidiary body of community leaders such as the CBS Parks Commission.
“Councils change… priorities change,” said Young. “What I would like to see is a purposeful group put in place with tenure… that basically directs what happens in that facility.”
Geologist and Manuels River Centre board member Jennifer Parsons made two pleas; one to eventually restore the centre’s educational summer camps for children, and the other to protect the fossils.
Retiree Tom Humphries had a question for council.
“I’d like to know where the money is going to come from?” he said. “I know a lot of people, seniors included, who can’t afford their taxes now. How much more are our taxes going to go up to keep this place going and this new recreation centre? We’re being taxed to death, and someone is going to have to buckle up and say where all the money is coming from and how much the mil rate is going to change.”
Michelle Porter, who owns the Sisters in Fitness running club, suggested the Town might be able to make business space available in the Centre for entrepreneurs under an arrangement like she has at the Recreation Complex. Porter said there is a severe lack of business space in CBS.
Rod Taylor, who once worked at the Centre as an interpreter, urged council to preserve the facility as a resource for fossil study, noting tens of thousands of students benefitted from the education programs there.
“The paleontology is the key thing,” said Taylor. “The fossils are world class, and they need to stay on display.”
Sculptor Ian Gillis, a single dad who lives along the Manuels River trail, suggested the building be used to support activities for families that can’t afford more expensive pursuits such as organized sports, which depend on Town-owned facilities.
“All of this sports is great – and the taxpayers are covering all of that – but I can’t find any arts or culture in CBS,” Gillis said. “I mean there’s such a great history of it, but it’s not on display anywhere… It’s just hidden in CBS…. And to not take advantage to make it an arts centre would be a crime.”
Amanda Janes of the CBS Community Garden group, asked council to protect the beautiful plants and flowers that have been installed around the centre and trail.
“One of the obstacles (at the centre) certainly has been parking,” Janes said. “The Manuels River Garden on site – I just hope that’s not vulnerable to being displaced for a parking lot.”
Amanda Peddle of Threatre CBS asked council earmark the building as a centre for arts, culture and natural heritage.
“It’s a special place,” said Peddle. “There’s lots of arts in this community that’s growing. We’re all working together to start an arts festival as well. So that’s a great opportunity for us to showcase the arts in CBS.”
Landscape architect Neil Dawe, whose company created the Town’s latest Recreation and Culture Master Plan, and who worked with architect Phillip Pratt on the original design for the centre years ago, stressed the beauty, value and utility of the trails surrounding the centre. The trail links Manuels River with St. John’s and the rest of CBS, he noted, and attracts bicyclists from throughout the region.
Dawe pointed out the centre’s physical connection to another popular feature in CBS. “You’ve got Worsley Park down at the end (of the trail), so you’ve got an asset really in terms of your programming that should be cross-promoted with the centre,” he said.
Dawe added there are many federal and provincial funding programs the Town can tap into for help in developing the facility.
Karen Morris of the Kelligrews Ecological Enhancement Program, KEEP, asked council to consider extending the protection of the famous fossils at Manuels River to the lesser known, but just as important, fossils located in the rocks of a former quarry in Kelligrews. There would be value, Morris said, in linking the deposits.
Trevor Fagan of the CBS Performing Arts Association pointed out that arts generate seven times as much economic activity in Newfoundland than do sports.
“Right now, we have an excellent opportunity to develop a much-needed, long overdue performing arts theatre in our community,” said Fagan. “We have over 800 people involved in performing arts activities in this town. So, we have the artists, we know the artists need it, the residents want it, they indicated that on the survey, and it’s an economic generator. So I say, let’s do it.”
Resident John Boland used humour to inject a note of caution. He asked everyone to consider the size of the centre.
“I don’t know where you’re going to put all that stuff that you’re talking about,” he said.
Boland argued the centre’s educational programs for children were invaluable and the original intent of the centre, to protect the fossils and educate the world about them, should be preserved.
“Not taking anything away from anybody else – there is a need for meeting space, there is a huge need for a place for the arts – but I’m not sure that that is the place,” Boland said. “We’ve got a world class facility that you can expand on… It’s unique… I tell you, people would be shocked if we undo what we have here. It would be going backwards.”
Fossil hunter Ben Rideout, who operates the facebook site NewFound Fossils, said he was glad to hear so many people recognize the value of the trilobites at Manuels River.
“A lot of people travel here to see the exhibit,” said Rideout.
Several of the remaining speakers spoke similarly, including Rotarian LeAnne Whalen who reminded everyone again that the building was purposely built to preserve and conserve the fossils and educate people about them.
Paradise resident and teacher Elaine Power, who once taught some of the classes at the centre, reinforced that point.
“That’s why the centre is there – for learning,” Power said. “If you know anything about fossils, that site puts us on the map globally. The reason that Manuels River is a big deal in the grand scheme of geological time and space on earth is because we have fossils here that are found in very few other places on earth… and ours are exceptionally preserved.”