The B.C. government is investing $789 million for a new state-of-the-art and seismically safe Royal BC Museum in Victoria. The new 23,000-square-metre museum is focused on making the Royal BC Museum a world-leading museum and gathering place.
“We are making this historic investment to build a safer, more inclusive and accessible modern building. Once complete, the new museum will be a flagship destination for tourism and a place where generations to come will learn about the richness and diversity of B.C.’s history,” said Premier John Horgan.
Like the Royal BC Museum’s collections and research building in Colwood, the new museum will be built to achieve high efficiency for all its HVAC systems. Both buildings will incorporate mass timber construction to leverage B.C.’s strengths in building innovation and support good jobs. These approaches will deliver significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and energy costs.
The new museum will also be one of the first government projects of this size that partners with local First Nations on the project team, participating in both project development and delivery, including design influence to reflect the Lekwungen peoples, and members of the Songhees Nation and Esquimalt Nation.
The new museum will bring significant economic and social benefits to the region, supporting more than 1,950 direct construction jobs, as well as more than 1,050 associated jobs, which will all contribute to B.C.’s COVID-19 economic recovery.
The Royal BC Museum has been at its current location since 1967 and has not been substantially renovated in more than 50 years. The Royal BC Museum site encompasses seven buildings over 2.7 hectares. The buildings include the exhibitions building, BC Archives, Imax Victoria, Fannin Building, Wawadit’la Mungo Martin House and Thunderbird Park, St. Ann’s Schoolhouse and Helmcken House.
Modernizing the Royal BC Museum will be the largest cultural investment in B.C. history and will take seven and a half years to complete. An RFQ is expected to be issued this fall.
The new modernized provincial museum is expected to open in 2030.
