Construction of Banff's Kinnear Centre set to begin

The Banff Centre got a major boost Saturday with up to $15 million in federal funding, bringing fundraisers close enough to their goal to begin construction of the Kinnear Centre for Creativity and Innovation.

"This brings us very close to our campaign goal of $120 million," Debra Hornsby, the director of communications for the centre, told CBCNews.ca. "We will begin building the Kinnear late this year [and] expect to open in late 2009."

The federal money brings the total to $118.5 million, said Hornsby, enough to break ground and start building.

The new building will replace an older one, built in 1952.Hornsby says the new centre has been designed by Diamond + Schmitt, the firm hailed for creating the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto.

Diamond + Schmitt recently completed building a new dining facility for the Banff Centre.

The Kinnear Centre is meant to be a multi-disciplinary space.

"For instance, you might have an opera company practicing a new work in one space and next door, dance students and next to them, 20 people in a leadership course and upstairs we might havepeople involved in a new media seminar," Hornsby said.

The centre is part of the organization's massive revitalization campaign, which includes a new performance amphitheatre and landscaping work to restore the area's natural vegetation.

Hornsby says the $120 million raised in the first phase with $56 million coming from the provincial government will also go towards grants and an endowment fund for artists.

The Banff Centre is also planning to revamp its performance facilities, to expand the Leighton Studios and to renovate a conservatory area for its permanent collection of art.