Until a permanent home can be found, West Vancouver’s Youth Services Hub will operate out of Park Royal South for the next two years.
Council allocated $250,000 to pay for the spot in the mall formerly occupied by Kin’s Market. However, the search for a fixed address will continue, according to West Vancouver Mayor Mary-Ann Booth.
“Council will continue to plan for a permanent Youth Services Hub in West Vancouver, but that will take some time,” Booth stated in a release from the municipality. “In the meantime, there is an immediate need and the Park Royal location provides us with an immediate response.”
The Park Royal site, which is 2,400 square feet, can provide drop-in service after school and on Friday and Saturday nights, according to the district.
West Vancouver is tentatively planning to open a permanent youth hub in 2021.
For more than 20 years, West Vancouver’s young people gathered in the Ambleside Youth Centre at 1018 Pound Rd. The building, however, was closed due to a faulty roof in January 2019 and eventually decommissioned when the repair bill was estimated at between $1.3 and $1.85 million.
The building was torched by an arsonist on March 30, 2019. Nearly six months later, council voted unanimously to find both a temporary and permanent location to offer outreach, drop-in space and youth programs.
Early efforts to relocate the youth hub to the West Vancouver Community Centre failed to draw teens in grades 8 through 12. Those who did show up didn’t feel “the same level of comfort, safety and autonomy” relative to the Ambleside centre, according to a district staff report.
The Pound Road building began its life as a hut equipped with anti-aircraft guns, “to defend the harbour entrance below the Lions Gate Bridge,” according to historian Eve Lazarus.
Following the Second World War, the building was re-purposed for the West Vancouver Rod & Gun Club. In 1990, a survey compiled by the municipality’s youth advisory committee found many teenagers felt there was little to do in West Vancouver except “drive around in cars.”
The most common requests from young people were for either a youth centre or a teen disco, according to a district report.
In 1996, district council made the decision to put the centre in Ambleside Park.
“This area is well suited to the preferences and needs of the community’s youth and will provide maximum opportunity for expansion of youth programming,” stated then-mayor Mark Sager.
