A subject of much discussion among Vernonites, the Greater Cultural Centre represents a promise of a thriving arts and culture scene in the future. 

As the project makes its way through development hurdles, the public has seen glimpses of what will become of the empty space across from Vernon's civic centre in the form of design concepts, the latest of which shows a white building with ample windows that will one day house the Museum and Archives of Vernon and the Vernon Public Art Gallery, and serve as a venue for arts and culture events with a flexible amphitheatre space. 

While construction is set to begin this year, shovels have yet to hit the ground, and the only tangible aspect of the Cultural Centre that Greater Vernon residents have been exposed to is its . 

But what will residents be getting for their money?

Vernon's Noah MacLeod, a member of the Cultural Centre task force, spoke to The Morning Star to share his thoughts on what the Culture Centre will bring to the Vernon area once complete, and particularly how it will benefit the younger generations. 

MacLeod is the former owner of Local Losers, a Vernon art supply shop that quickly became a music venue in its two years on 30th Avenue before it closed in June 2023. Local Losers was especially beloved by the younger crowd who regularly filled the small venue during shows. 

MacLeod has kept the brand alive with his company, Local Losers Underground, which hosts community-based events with a focus on combining live music and art in the North Okanagan (one of its biggest events was  this past September). He was formerly a member of the Arts Council of the North Okanagan and played a big role in starting Vernon's Sundog Festival as part of B.C. Culture Days. 

In short, MacLeod is deeply plugged into the local arts and culture scene, and as a 26-year-old he's an advocate for getting youth involved in arts and culture locally. 

Here is MacLeod's conversation with The Morning Star about the Greater Vernon Cultural Centre.

Q. You're a Vernonite who is dedicated to the arts. What is Vernon's arts scene currently missing?

A. One of the biggest things I think really has been exemplified recently is the diversity of performance venues. We just lost one of our longtime core venues, Record City, as a space that's available for musicians to rent, for musicians to use, and for emerging bands as well as established bands to perform in. So that's something that was really important and we're kind of lacking. We have one of the predominant performing arts facilities in all of Western Canada with the Vernon and District Performing Arts Centre. They're wonderful, as well as the Towne Theatre and the Elks Club. We do have some great spaces but I think we are lacking in accessible small venues. 

As well as that, in other parts of the scene, it's engagement with the youth community. I see a lot of support for events that are focused on retirees and people of a different generation, which of course is fair as Vernon is somewhat a retirement town. But we do have a huge community of young people who are eager to create, engage and support local businesses and events. And I think more attention put to supporting that demographic is really important, and that's where I've found a lot of success with my endeavours and my community events. 

When I first opened Local Losers it started out mainly as a gallery and a retail store, and within the first six months we had done a few small music events, and what I found from that is there is this booming need and appetite for spaces for people to engage with music and the arts ... and I see it every time I do an event or a festival, from the biggest ones we've done to the smallest ones, people come up to me being like, 'we need more of this.'

Q. How do you think the Cultural Centre will improve the situation you described, or the local arts scene generally? 

A. I think having a really high class facility that will become the centre of so many different disciplines of arts and culture is going to be huge. We have an amazing institution in the Vernon Public Art Gallery here, and I've worked with them on many projects before, whether that's music-focused or visual arts. I've attended so many events there and they've all been amazing – and bringing them together with the museum and all the wonderful things they do for our community will be great. On top of that, providing a larger space where you can have music performances, art performances, all of these different things that the facility is going to support, I think it's going to be massive. 

Right now in our community, we don't really have a hub. I feel like we have a lot of public and private institutions that are putting a lot of amazing work into building the cultural community, but there's not one space that kind of is supporting so many different areas ... And I've noticed this a lot where there's not always enough opportunities, and I'm super excited for this project because I can just see it creating so many more opportunities. 

Q. The tax burden is being felt by Greater Vernon residents right now, and the Culture Centre project is amounting to an $85 annual tax increase per average household for the next eight years. Given other expensive projects are happening currently, why is now the time to be embarking on this project? 

A. I think, especially with large public investments like this, it's always a financial burden when it's first embarked on. When the recreation centre was first created, when the Active Living Centre was coming to fruition and is now being built, Kal Tire Place, these are all large projects that when you see that number that's on your taxes that's going to be coming out of your pocket, it's scary. 

But I think the thing that's sometimes harder for people to see is the long-term positive impacts that these facilities have. And so you look at how long the public art gallery has supported arts in this town and has been a hub, and you look at how long the Vernon Community Arts Centre has been giving people amazing access to classes and artist talks and facilities to use that are really, really accessible, affordable, and amazing, and that they wouldn't have had access to otherwise. There's hundreds of thousands of experiences and people that have had positive interactions in these spaces. I think you look at the long-term and it's, for me at least, it's a very easy cost to bare. 

And I get excited about the fact that Vernon is investing in the arts ...  in the short term it's a big number, but in the long term I think it's going to be an amazing benefit for our community. I always bring it back to this but young people and their involvement is huge because that's what builds the next generations of professional people that are supporting the arts and people that are supporting youth. So when you make this investment today in a space that is so supportive and at the heart of our community, right in downtown Vernon, I think you're going to feel that impact for generations.

There's no shovels in the ground, a lot of people aren't super familiar with what the use of the space and the current designs are. So when you just see a number it's scary, and it can seem much larger than it is. But I think the farther along we come to the completion of this project, the easier it will be to see this is an amazing space. 

Q. You're a young man who has championed the arts among youth. How can the arts benefit young people and how will the Cultural Centre serve young people?

A. I think the benefit of engaging with arts to youth is very easy to see when you're on the ground level. I've been in so many spaces where kids are experiencing their first live show and you just see the smile come across their face as they're seeing something so mind-blowing and wicked that they've never experienced before. And especially when you've been involved in these communities for a few years, you start to see these relationships with the arts develop ... there's these mentorships and these relationships where people are teaching each other, and it's this really amazing circle of transfer of knowledge and positive experiences, and it just grows and grows. 

I think having the Cultural Centre downtown, especially for youth, is big because one of the things I've noticed from when I had my venue and my store ... one of the biggest issues I hear from kids is with our transportation system, getting rides from family or whatever it is — it's super easy to get downtown. A lot of kids, if they live on East Hill, it's a 10 minute walk and they can make it there safely and quickly. A lot of the time there's a barrier of accessibility the farther away things get, and so I think having this amazing space at the heart of so many different communities, at the heart of our city where it's accessible to youth, is going to be huge. 

Q. Anxiety and depression are rampant among youth populations. Could arts and culture, or a creative outlet, be a solution? 

A. Obviously there's not one easy answer for the mental health crisis nowadays, but I know for myself, the reason I initially became so invested in art was because I was going through my own difficulties, and that was the most natural way for me to cope with these things I was having difficulty with. Sometimes just painting something beautiful gives you the best feeling that's better than anything else, or being able to make a song, whether it's jazz that's smooth and makes you feel warm, or it's death metal that has a guttural feeling that it pulls out of you. There's so many different forms of expression for different people, and I know many, many people that live much more positive lives because of their artistic practice or their engagement with art. 

There's so many important things when you're talking about helping people be healthy, whether that's mental health, physical health, financial health. But I think at the heart of it, having a creatively fulfilled life is a really important pillar, at least in my own life, and in many people I know. 

Q. What excites you most about the Cultural Centre project? 

A. I think seeing such a large investment from the community towards an arts and culture project that I can see just the butterfly effect and positive events that are going to come out of that, makes me really happy. As somebody who's involved in the arts community, a lot of the time it feels like the arts kind of gets forgotten about for sports and other types of culture, and business. And so seeing the community rally behind this project and supporting music and history and visual arts and all these different things, it makes me really happy.