Shaw Centre for the Salish Sea

The Shaw Centre for the Salish Sea is a not-for-profit aquarium and cultural learning centre that focuses on the ecosystem of the Salish Sea and is located in the Sidney Pier Building on the waterfront in the Vancouver Island town of Sidney, Canada, in the Greater Victoria region. Since its grand opening on June 20, 2009, the Shaw Centre for the Salish Sea has quickly become a highly regarded environmental education centre and popular attraction with locals and tourists alike. Receiving 100,000 visitors in just its first seven months of operations the Centre has won numerous awards including being named "One of Canada's Top Ten New Attractions" for summer 2009 by Where Magazine.HistoryThe development of the Shaw Centre for the Salish Sea started in 2004, when the Town of Sidney approved the development proposal by the Marker Group to build the Sidney Pier Hotel and condominium project on a waterfront site overlooking the Salish Sea. The construction of the Sidney Pier Building was approved by the Town on the basis that the project would feature and fund a series of community amenities that included providing 930m2 of space on the ground floor of the development that would be given to the Town at no cost. Owned by the Town, the space was originally intended to house the previously existing Marine Mammal Museum and Marine Ecology Centre. Board members from the two not-for-profit organizations recognized the opportunity the expanded space on a spectacular waterfront site could offer and agreed to work together to create a marine attraction and education centre. With equal representation, the two groups established an eight-person volunteer board to form the non-profit New Marine Centre Society on February 14, 2005, for the purpose of creating the new centre.