After break for 'social mission' during COVID, New Vision church closes in on launch of music venue

Five years after New Vision United Church announced it was embarking on a project to transform its auditorium into a 1,000-seat live music venue, renovators say the Hamilton landmark is aiming to host its first major event next September.

Cobalt Connects was hired by New Vision to develop the business plan for the music hall. Jeremy Freiburger, cultural strategist, said COVID-19 brought their fundraising efforts to a halt, but the project is still ongoing.

"We were literally in a meeting hitting the ground to go and start the capital campaign and COVID hit," Freiburger told CBC Hamilton. 

"It was like the worst timing ever for fundraising, so that stuff has been largely on hold. We've been doing bits and pieces of it, but we really sort of put the fundraising side on hold so that the folks at New Vision could use the building to serve a social mission."

Freiburger said what's different about New Vision as a venue is that they're not just there to support the music sector or to make money. 

"They're there to combine their social interests in supporting diverse communities [and] Indigenous communities in developing downtown, economic development and job creation with their love of music," Freiburger said.

"So, we said, during COVID, we're going to use the building for a whole host of things that serve the social issues, so it was a resting and hygiene centre for folks living rough downtown for eight months.

"It was home to two groups … that were feeding hundreds of families a week and providing warm clothes and all sorts of things to people through COVID," he added.

As those things have winded down he said they've started to use the buildings for arts programming with a social justice piece. 

While fundraising was placed on hold during the pandemic, Freiburger said the operations team continued working and "has now fully completed the plan for the renovations" with the architects.

The plan is to operate from now until the end of April with the building as is," Freiburger said.

He said they will then close down for the summer when some "really intense renovation" will be carried out "where we completely rejuvenate the auditorium hall and bring all the technical equipment." 

"One of the biggest pieces is adding a massive set of washrooms for the lower halls... and then we'll open again in September of 2022 and operate for eight or nine months, and then close down again in the summer to put in a new elevator."

Freiburger said they plan "to be fully operational" by September 2022 when the hall will be ready for "all sorts of events."