BURST
Vancouver park board staff want a zip line and tree canopy walk built in Queen Elizabeth Park.
Next Monday, the board will be asked to approve a staff plan permitting local businesses to build a 300-metre tree walk in the northwest section of the park and a 120-metre zip line directly north of the Bloedel Conservatory.
The Queen Elizabeth Park attractions program would also include a visitor centre to be a base for the new attractions and a seasonal bus service linking Queen Elizabeth Park to the VanDusen Botanical Garden. A zip line is a cable running from a higher to lower point down, which a person traverses attached to the cable.
Queen Elizabeth Park is second in size to Stanley Park and occupies the highest point in the city. The 52-hectare park is home to the Bloedel Conservatory, Seasons in the Park restaurant, a landscaped quarry garden, an arboretum with a large collection of native trees, and tennis, lawn bowling and pitch and putt facilities.
The staff report states that in April 2023 the park board received an unsolicited proposal to introduce a suite of attractions and services to the park. The report did not say who made the proposal.
In June 2023, “driven by the proposal’s alignment with the park board’s mandate and compatibility with park spaces” a request for expression of interest was issued and was won by Greenheart and Partners.
The group consists of Greenheart, which has operated the UBC tree walk for the past 17 years, Triple Bottom Line and the Nature Agency.
Under the proposal, the canopy walk would operate year-round and the zip line just during the summer months. It is expected to cost the companies around $2.5 million to establish. The canopy walk would cost $20 a person while the zip line would cost $16. The tree walk would use 10 healthy trees for supports, with some sickly trees slated for removal.
“As Vancouver’s second official destination park, Queen Elizabeth Park is well positioned to support this proposal,” the staff report states.
“It is sufficiently large to integrate these experiences without significantly impacting most other park users, it possesses the tree canopy and elevation required to support the attractions program, it is centrally located, enhancing access for residents, visitors and school groups and it will provide new ways for residents, including the growing population in adjacent neighbourhoods, to engage with the park.”
Park board is asked to sign a five-year deal with Greenheart and Partners with an option to renew for another five years.
If successful, staff suggest the park could also host a one-month-a-year butterfly enclosure.