The District of West Vancouver paid $2.7 million for the former Boathouse restaurant in Horseshoe Bay, which will be the new home of the West Vancouver Art Museum.
Mayor Mark Sager announced at the Feb. 24 council that the municipality had bought the building from the Sewell family, but releasing the purchase price required another vote of council prior to the March 3 meeting.
Sager made that number public on Monday night. The purchase price was significantly below the property’s last assessed value of $5.1 million.
“That was a very generous position that the Sewells took for the benefit of not only Horseshoe Bay, but really all of West Vancouver,” Sager said.
The process of converting the restaurant into a community art gallery is expected to cost another $500,000 to $1.5 million, which Sager said they intend to collect by selling naming rights.
The land has been owned by the Sewell family since the 1930s. The restaurant closed in 2016 for the development of the condo project along the bluff. Previously, the 1981 building hosted The Keg and the Lodge restaurants.
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