The new Niagara Falls Exchange in the historic Main and Ferry district will include a large culture and market hall, café, artist studios, creative workshop and public washrooms surrounded by two multi-functional civic plazas that interconnect the flanking streets. Located adjacent to the Niagara Falls History Museum, the site is knit together with a design language that prioritizes an accessible public realm, and creates quality indoor and outdoor space that is durable, flexible, and sustainable. The working title of the project, the Niagara Falls Exchange (NFX), speaks to the rich exchange of ideas and creativity that is anticipated to occur on site and between the arts and culture, food and farming communities of Niagara Falls.
Location
Niagara Falls, Ontario
The new Niagara Falls Exchange will become a vibrant centre of activity in the community by providing shared spaces where artists, musicians, food vendors and patrons, and local businesses can come together and create.
Place-making through food and art is an integral part of DTAH's community-focused work. The Niagara Falls Cultural Hub and Farmers' Market builds on our experience designing centres for social exchange and urban agriculture such as Evergreen Brick Works and Artscape Wychwood Barns. Other cultural hub projects underway include the design and implementation of New Dawn's The Convent, which involves adaptively reusing the 133 year-old Holy Angels Convent in Sydney, Nova Scotia, into a centre that hosts the Island’s growing innovation & entrepreneurial community and deep-rooted tradition of arts and culture.
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Niagara Falls has marked the start of construction for its new cultural hub and farmers market with a virtual groundbreaking video.
To be called Niagara Falls Exchange, the hub replaces the former farmers market at Sylvia Place, directly behind Niagara Falls History Museum. The building was torn down last month and construction boarding has been placed around the development site.
]The video, uploaded to YouTube Tuesday, was filmed during the warmer months and features comments from Mayor Jim Diodati, local artists, BIA members and the city’s prominent arts and culture figures.
“I’m proud to have a fantastic facility like this in our hometown,” said Niagara Falls artist Manual Trujillo.
The hub will be the city’s new home for arts and culture events in addition to offering a new, 370-square-metre farmers market. Once complete it will feature two interconnected plazas, artist studios, workshops, indoor and outdoor exhibition space and a café.
The project stems from a cultural plan the city commissioned in 2013 that determined Niagara Falls lagged far behind cities of similar size when it came to arts amenities.
Budgeted at $15.2 million, it will be built by Oshawa-based contractors Garritano Brothers Ltd.
While Diodati is hopeful to see the project completed next year, culture and museums manager Clark Bernat said Canada Day 2022 is more likely.