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The Pacific National Exhibition turns 100 in 2010, but deliberations over the future of Hastings Park will continue.
Vancouver city council decided Thursday to continue with a $1.6 million master plan for Vancouver's second largest park and site of its annual fair.
In October 2008, the city hired parks planner Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg, theme park and casino specialist Forrec and multipurpose and stadium consultant Economic Research Associates to find ways to turn the PNE into moneymaker. It traditionally breaks even or loses money.
A Nov. 27 report to council said the PNE netted $5.5 million from the annual summer fair and $4.2 million from its Playland amusement park plus another $300,000 from festivals and facility rentals in 2009.
PNE/Hastings Park project manager Dave Hutch told council that refurbishment of the livestock barns and building of a flat-floor exhibition building between the Pacific Coliseum and Agrodome would help restore fair attendance to the 1 million range. In 2009, it drew 800,000 amid rainy August weather. The PNE typically draws 900,000.
Staff considered moving Playland into the former site of Empire Stadium to free-up green space on Windermere Hill. Instead, council agreed with a plan to pull Playland's Hastings Street entrance back to create new park space that would unite the Empire Bowl fields with the rest of the site.
B.C. Pavilion Corporation wants to build a temporary 30,000-32,000-seat stadium at Empire Bowl for the B.C. Lions while B.C. Place Stadium is closed for renovations after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Playland would be expanded northward and a nearby 4,000-seat amphitheatre would be upgraded for all-weather use.
Twenty-two people were registered to speak to council at the Thursday meeting, including members of the Hastings Park Conservancy who say the city is breaking its promise to increase green space at Hastings Park.
Coun. Ellen Woodsworth was the only opponent. Coun. Raymond Louie, who is also the PNE board chairman, voted for the proposal. Mayor Gregor Robertson was away in Copenhagen at the United Nations' climate change convention.
The city took over the PNE from the provincial government in 2004 after Victoria scuttled the fair's move to Surrey. Hastings Park is the city's second largest at 66 hectares where a race track has operated since 1892.