A spa in Stanley Park's polar bear enclosure? Park board chair would 'love to see' idea move forward

It's one of the weirdest and most controversial public spaces in the City of Vancouver — a concrete collection of pools and stairwells in Stanley Park that were once home to four polar bears.

The site has been vacant for nearly three decades, ever since the Vancouver Zoo that it was part of was shut down in the 1990s. While it's in a central area of the park and just a minute's walk from parking lots, today it's overgrown with weeds and graffiti, with no public programming for the area in many years. 

But now, an unconventional idea by a local architecture firm to convert the site into a Nordic-style spa is getting a provisional thumbs-up from the chair of the Vancouver Park Board.

"I would love to see this come forward as a serious proposal to the board," said Scott Jensen.

"We want to have a new lens being projected over what we can do within our parks, so that decommissioned splash pads or decommissioned polar bear enclosures can be revitalized."

What would it look like?

The proposal is for cold and hot pools, a steam room and underground areas that would "would become a public place for people to congregate, socialize and rest; especially in the wet winter months when social interaction is in such short supply."

It comes complete with a flashy website and detailed sketches from Tony Osborn Architecture and Design, which has long been intrigued with the space. 

"This is really just kind of a dead zone stuck in history. It's kind of a ruin, and I'm really surprised that it's impossible to come to Stanley Park and inhabit it," said Tony Osborn, who said his firm has been playing around with the idea since 2017.

"We thought it would be a really powerful idea for people to actually be able to go and reinhabit these spaces that used to be completely off limits, only for the polar bears that used to live here."

Osborn is upfront about it being "an unsolicited design concept" with no business plan or budget attached to it, saying that it's meant to be a conversation starter.

"As a practice, I really think it's important that architects help imagine the public potential for sites like this," he said. 

"There's been a lot of examples … of us trying to grapple as a culture with remnants of the past, that maybe we don't feel great about. These are excellent opportunities to approach architecturally how we might reintegrate urban life into these spaces without completely erasing that history."

What comes next?

There are several major steps that would need to take place before anything could happen with the polar bear enclosure. 

One would be a business plan for any proposal — not just in terms of total cost for renovations, but how much any ticket for an attraction would cost.   

"When I look at this, it looks great. But I know the common refrain those opposed would be turning Stanley Park into a playground for the wealthy, and that's not something that many people are keen to have," said Jensen. 

And perhaps most importantly, there's now a Stanley Park Intergovernmental Committee, in which members of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations — who have a history long beyond when polar bears came in — are working with the park board to develop a comprehensive plan for the land.

"That would be Step 1 in ensuring that the respect for Stanley Park is maintained in any sort of moving forward collaboration," said Jensen. 

For now though, Osborn is happy to start a conversation — even if it doesn't necessarily end with the park board taking the plunge. 

"We're architects," he said, "so we can't keep from imagining what it could be."