Long delayed $640K public art project nearing completion in East Vancouver

A pricey public art piece that recalls the history of Vancouver's Hastings Park is slowly creeping toward completion, albeit seven years after it was promised and almost $200,000 over the original $450,000 price tag.

Entitled Home + Away, it's a 17 metre-high sliver of scaffolding, concrete and metal containing 48 seats overlooking the northwest corner of Empire Fields. The updated cost is $640,000.

In an emailed statement, the City of Vancouver said the "stunning" and "remarkable" artwork should be finished by October of this year. However, the Seattle-based architect-artist team behind the work is more optimistic, aiming to have the final bolt in place by the summer.

"It's just been this cascading series of stops and starts for quite a while," explained Daniel Mihalyo who, along with Annie Han, conceived Home + Away in 2012.

Han and Mihalyo say problems started almost as soon as the project got the go-ahead, beginning with funding delays and location changes that required three or four redesigns and the dropping of the blue and yellow "V" shape that had been approved. 

In 2020 a contractor poured concrete footings and steps, but the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the work and the Canada-U.S. border, preventing Mihalyo and Han from travelling to Vancouver.

When pandemic restrictions eased, materials were hard to source because of supply chain problems. Then the contractor suffered an injury and was unavailable to do the work.

"We are hoping to move along," said Han. "We have all the parts that we needed to make and they've been sitting in our studio for over two years. The parts the contractor has to finish are being worked on right now."

Home + Away is supposed to reference the PNE wooden roller coaster while harkening back to the stands of long-gone Empire Stadium and the towering scaffolding of the ski jumping competition held there in 1958.

The City of Vancouver has a more florid description of Home + Away: "It evokes the experience of the vertiginous heights of the earlier structures in the park and offers a new perspective on the surrounding mountains, encouraging us to pause, connect with each other, and enjoy the beauty of our city." 

It said the delivery timeline for "built-form" public art projects typically varies from four to eight years. 

Han and Mihalyo say after such a long process, they are happy the finish line is in sight.

"We are so excited we are at this point. The structure is up, it's standing and all we have to work on are the seats and railings," said Mihalyo.

"It's going to be really exciting and a great addition to the park and I can't wait for people to use it."