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Written: September 20, 2026
Cumberland is gradually assembling two major civic blocks around Dunsmuir Avenue. The latest purchase makes sense in the context of land assembly. The bigger question is what all of this is building toward, what we intend to preserve, and how it fits with the Village’s other long-term infrastructure needs.
Cumberland is gradually assembling two major civic blocks around Dunsmuir Avenue. The latest purchase makes sense in the context of land assembly. The bigger question is what all of this is building toward, what we intend to preserve, and how it fits with the Village’s other long-term infrastructure needs.
Update September 21: Since this story was published, the Village has launched a new Facilities Renewal engagement page that brings much of this long-term planning together in one place. The planning itself is not new, but having a public-facing overview is a welcome step and addresses one of the main questions raised below. I’ve added the link here for anyone who wants to follow the process or provide input: Village Facilities Renewal – Engage Comox Valley.
3273 First Street. Council has not yet determined the short-term use of the newly acquired house.
On September 19, the Village of Cumberland announced that it is purchasing 3273 First Street, the house immediately behind the Cumberland Museum and Cultural Centre, for $860,000 plus associated costs and fees.
The Village says the purchase gives it greater flexibility for future redevelopment of the civic block north of Dunsmuir Avenue. Council has not yet determined the short-term use of the house.
The financing is worth paying attention to. $465,000 is coming from the Facility Asset Replacement Reserve. Another $400,000 will be internally borrowed from other Village reserves and repaid over seven years, partly by redirecting money that otherwise would have gone into that same facility reserve. Interest will ultimately be paid from property taxes.
I think buying the property makes sense.
The more interesting question is:
Now that Cumberland is assembling these civic blocks, what exactly are we building toward, and can we afford it?
Another piece of the civic puzzle
Another piece of the civic puzzle
3273 First Street is an awkward private cutout from an otherwise largely civic block containing the Museum and Cultural Centre.
It also follows the Village’s 2023 purchase of 3249 First Street beside the Public Works yard on the civic block south of Dunsmuir. Council approved that purchase for $600,000 plus closing costs, with a budget of $601,500 funded through the provincial Growing Community Fund. The house was later prepared for rental rather than immediately demolished.
There is a third part to the strategy. In 2019, Cumberland purchased land around Union Road for future municipal purposes, including a potential new Public Works yard.
The Village now explicitly connects 3249 and 3273 to the eventual redevelopment of the two civic blocks.
So this isn’t really a story about one $860,000 house.
It is about long-term land assembly.
The Village’s purchase of 3273 First Street adds another property to the north civic block. The Village previously purchased 3249 First Street beside the Public Works yard in 2023.
The Industrial Arts building was used by Discovery College in the late 2000s for its carpentry program.
The Cumberland Museum at 2680 Dunsmuir. A house once occupied this site before being demolished for the Museum and Cultural Centre development.
These blocks have changed before
These blocks have changed before
The north civic block has already been remade several times.
Much of it formed part of Cumberland’s former elementary and high-school complex. Most of those buildings disappeared, although the old Industrial Arts building at 2679 Beaufort Avenue survives. It was later used by Discovery College for its carpentry program.
The Museum site was once residential. The Layland house was demolished to make way for the Museum building and Cultural Centre development.
The original Cultural Centre plans document another period in which Cumberland deliberately reshaped this part of downtown around community and heritage uses.
Now the block is changing again.
That doesn’t mean change is bad. The Museum and Cultural Centre themselves came from change.
But every generation gets to decide what survives into the next one.
The building Cumberland was reportedly offered for $1
The building Cumberland was reportedly offered for $1
Immediately west of the Cultural Centre is another piece of this history.
The building at 2660 Dunsmuir Avenue, now occupied by Harmonic Arts, was once the Comox Valley Child Development Centre. The organization opened in downtown Cumberland on July 12, 1974, initially focusing on preschool-aged children with developmental delays and disabilities.
The Cumberland building contained offices and four classrooms. I have a personal connection to that one: I attended preschool there.
There is also a longstanding local story about what happened when the Child Development Association left Cumberland.
Residents who were around municipal politics at the time recall the property being offered to the Village for $1 around 2000. The recollection is that the matter was dealt with in camera and that the Village did not want to take on another building to maintain.
Why does the story matter now?
Because that building could conceivably have become municipal office space or continued serving childcare or other community uses. Instead, decades later, the Village faces municipal space pressures while governments are again investing in new childcare capacity elsewhere.
That doesn’t prove the old decision was wrong. Councils make decisions with the finances and information they have at the time.
But it is a reminder that land and building decisions can shape Cumberland for generations.
The former Comox Valley Child Development Centre at 2660 Dunsmuir Avenue, now home to Harmonic Arts. The building contained four preschool classrooms, and I attended preschool here.
There is an old plan. Where is the current picture?
There is an old plan. Where is the current picture?
Cumberland has been planning for its aging civic facilities for years.
A 2017 Facility Master Plan found significant space pressures across several departments. The Museum and Archives, for example, had approximately 6,000 square feet, while the study estimated a need for more than 12,000 square feet.
The plan proposed a phased strategy.
Public Works would relocate. A new Civic Centre would eventually replace the existing Administration Office, Council Chambers and Museum/Archives facilities. The Cultural Centre would remain, while the Recreation Centre would be dealt with separately.
The proposed Civic Centre was approximately 23,254 square feet, with an order-of-magnitude estimate of $13.2 million in 2017 dollars. The entire seven-phase facilities program was estimated at more than $44 million in 2017 dollars.
Those are old conceptual figures, not today’s construction estimates.
But they establish the scale.
This has always been an eight-figure conversation.
The plan also contemplated incorporating commercial or residential space into a future Civic Centre to help generate revenue.
So, yes, I can make the Cumberland gentrification joke:
Are we eventually looking at a Civic Centre, condos above it and a Starbucks on the corner?
Starbucks is a joke.
The underlying question isn’t.
Cumberland is already dealing with the tension between redevelopment and the character of its historic core. The Cumberland Hotel property, for example, has gone through proposals that included demolishing the existing building for a four-storey mixed-use development.
New development will happen.
The more important question is what we choose to preserve as Cumberland grows and redevelops.
The Cumberland Hotel site has also been the subject of redevelopment proposals.
The south civic block contains several of Cumberland’s older municipal facilities. Public Works is eventually intended to relocate to the Union Road lands, opening up major redevelopment possibilities here.
What should be preserved?
What should be preserved?
The south civic block contains the former Fire Hall, the old OAP Hall that normally serves as Council Chambers, the Municipal Office, Recreation Centre and Public Works yard.
These are all aging civic buildings. Several need significant investment, and over time some may no longer make sense for their current uses.
That doesn’t automatically mean demolition should be the first option.
The 2017 facilities study itself recommended trying to save and relocate the existing Council Chambers because of its historical significance.
Could the old Fire Hall eventually become a restaurant, retail space, workshop or other commercial use?
Could the old OAP Hall become a proper youth or community space again?
When Public Works leaves, could part of that land become public gathering or performance space connected to No. 6 Mine Park?
Sometimes one way to preserve an older public building is not for the Village to operate it forever, but to find a viable new use that allows a business, non-profit or other organization to carry some of the cost of maintaining it.
The same question applies to 3273 First Street.
If future redevelopment requires the land and the house is structurally sound, could relocation be considered before demolition?
We don’t have to preserve every building forever.
But we should decide what is worth preserving before redevelopment makes the decision for us.
Parking is part of the plan too
Parking is part of the plan too
Parking may be the least exciting part of civic planning, but this area already gets tight.
The parking area behind the Cultural Centre is heavily used, particularly during major downtown events and street closures. When the core fills, vehicles spill into surrounding residential streets.
There is another variable immediately behind the Cultural Centre.
In 2019, Council approved the first phase of a commercial development on the former school/Industrial Arts property at 2679 Beaufort Avenue. The larger master plan contemplated two retail/office buildings and a later commercial/residential building of roughly 1,900 square metres.
The 2019 master plan contemplated 127 parking spaces across the completed development.
That old permit is not the same thing as a current development proposal. But it demonstrates the amount of additional activity that could eventually be concentrated around this block.
If that site is eventually developed with retail, offices, housing or another higher-traffic commercial use at the same time the civic block is redeveloped, where do all of those vehicles go?
We shouldn’t plan each property in isolation and discover afterward that all of them were relying on the same surrounding streets to absorb their parking.
The parking area behind the Cultural Centre is heavily used during downtown events and street closures.
The original site plan for the Pharmasave development. Proposed Building 3 is shown on the former Industrial Arts site.
Land purchased for a future Public Works yard off Union Road, near the Nikkei No Haka Japanese Cemetery and the Chinese Cemetery.
Union Road is supposed to come first
Union Road is supposed to come first
The newer facilities strategy still follows roughly the same sequence as the old plan.
In 2022, Council reviewed the Dunsmuir civic lands and the Village-owned Union Road properties to consider the long-term location of Public Works, Village offices, Council Chambers, recreation and cultural facilities.
During the 2024 budget process, Council discussed beginning Dunsmuir block planning around 2028, with planning, design and construction of the new Public Works yard at Union Road happening first.
So there is a direction:
Move Public Works, then start unlocking the downtown civic lands.
What is harder to find is one current document showing residents how Union Road, the north civic block and the south civic block ultimately fit together.
Lots of big ideas. Not a lot of money.
Lots of big ideas. Not a lot of money.
This is where the land strategy meets the financial reality.
The Village’s older asset-management work estimated the replacement value of Village assets at approximately $150 million and suggested Cumberland should be investing about $3.6 million per year toward asset replacement.
The 2019 asset model estimated that buildings alone required about $435,000 a year in replacement funding. Current 2026 budget materials show about $186,200 annually being contributed for general Village facility assets.
For roads, water, sewer and storm infrastructure, the 2026 contribution shown in the financial plan is approximately $968,000, increasing in later years.
The Village itself identifies roads, utilities and maintaining existing assets as priorities.
And now $465,000 is being drawn from the Facility Asset Replacement Reserve to purchase 3273, while another $400,000 is being internally borrowed and repaid partly by redirecting future contributions that otherwise would have gone into that reserve.
That does not mean the purchase was a mistake.
It shows the tradeoff.
The same facility reserve intended to help maintain and eventually replace Cumberland’s municipal buildings is now also helping assemble the land for whatever replaces them.
And whatever new facility we eventually build becomes another asset Cumberland has to heat, maintain, repair and someday replace.
What can residents see now?
What can residents see now?
Land purchases often need to be negotiated in camera. There are legitimate reasons a municipality cannot publicly reveal its negotiating position while trying to buy property.
But once the purchase is complete, there are still useful questions residents can ask.
Was an independent appraisal obtained for 3273? Can the appraisal, or a summary of it, now be released?
Which reserves will provide the $400,000 internal loan?
What will the Facility Asset Replacement Reserve look like afterward?
Will 3273 produce rental income while the long-term plan is developed?
And, more broadly:
What is the preferred long-term concept for these civic blocks?
Residents shouldn’t have to piece that answer together from a 2017 facilities study, a 2022 update, old budget presentations and individual property purchases.
Show us the picture
Show us the picture
We now have the Union Road lands, 3249 First Street and 3273 First Street.
We have facilities studies going back years. We know the Museum needs more space. We know existing buildings need investment. And we know an earlier Civic Centre concept was already an eight-figure project in 2017 dollars.
So where is the picture showing residents what all of this is building toward?
It doesn’t need to be a final architectural rendering.
Show the two civic blocks and Union Road.
Show which buildings might stay, move or be repurposed.
Show where new facilities could go.
Show what happens to parking.
Show the likely sequence.
Show the broad range of costs being contemplated.
And show how the new assets would be maintained after we build them.
Then residents can have the larger conversation before those choices are locked in.
Cumberland has lots of big ideas and limited money.
That makes the order we do things in, and the things we choose to preserve along the way, important.
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