The $132.5-million project is also behind the construction schedule the proponent committed to at the time of the announcement, the more than 1,000 pages of records obtained through the Access to Information Act show.
Cantos Music Foundation president Andrew Mosker, who is spearheading the music centre, says fundraising timing has had to change, but is doing well after a renewed commitment from the provincial government.
The foundation, which operates a Calgary museum featuring one of the largest keyboard collections in the world, received commitments of $25 million apiece that year from Calgary and the federal and Alberta governments to construct the 135,000-square-foot centre.
Cantos was left responsible for raising the remaining $57.5 million for the ambitious project, which will include music memorabilia from the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame, a recording studio, a musical venue and restaurant in the location of the old King Eddy blues bar, and artist-in-residence studios to lure prominent musicians.
“It is clear that as a not-for-profit organization with few significant assets of its own, the success of the foundation’s significant fundraising campaign will be critical for both the construction and operational phases,” according to a “project review” of the proposed centre.
“The possibility that the foundation may not be able to reach its overall fundraising target remains a key risk for the proposed project,” said the analysis dated October 2010, the same month Ottawa announced it would match the $25-million apiece pledged by Calgary and the Alberta government.
Other documents also mentioned the risk factor, including one email issued five days before the announcement from one Infrastructure Canada official to another, asking: “Are there any thoughts on what conditions we should be proposing to mitigate the risks we discussed?”
And a September 2010 Infrastructure Canada briefing note stated: “The recipient (has) no previous contribution agreement experience at any level of government. As well, part of the funding for the project comes from a fundraising campaign which places the finances at a higher level of risk.”
The music centre was one of thousands of projects across Canada showered with federal cash as part of Ottawa’s efforts to counter the impact of the 2008 global recession.
It came from the $8.8-billion Building Canada Fund, which was described in the documents as a tool intended partly to “stimulate” the economy by giving “greater consideration” to projects being constructed before the end of 2010-11.
Cantos had committed to beginning construction of the centre in April 2011 in Calgary’s East Village at the site of the old King Eddy, with completion scheduled for January 2014. That schedule was set out by Chuck Strahl, then minister of transport, infrastructure and communities, in a letter sent to Cantos’ Mosker shortly before Oct. 12, 2010.
Among the many conditions attached to the funding was the declaration that Cantos will be required to “demonstrate, prior to the disbursement of any federal funds, that it has secured the funds to complete the project and to operate and maintain the facility,” Strahl said in the letter.
Mosker said in an interview on Feb. 28 that construction won’t start until sometime “before the end of 2012,” with completion in late 2014.
The change in timing is a result of “prudent” management, he said.
“I don’t think we’re behind schedule at all, actually,” he said. “I think we’re doing extremely well, given the fact that we’re inventing an institution and given the fact we’re doing it in a place, Calgary, that doesn’t have a tradition of doing this kind of work on a national scale.”
Mosker told the Calgary Herald in December that his foundation had raised a total of $8 million privately, in addition to the $75 million in government money, but said last week private fundraising — involving cheques and pledges — has doubled to approximately $15 million.
Original Article
Source: calgary herald
Author: Peter O'Neil
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