Posted Dec 19, 2015, 5:10 AM
|
|
Registered User
|
|
Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 661
|
|
Work nearly set to begin on new Kelowna hotel.
Quote:
Downtown Kelowna hotel set to get green light from city
Construction of Kelowna’s long-awaited new downtown hotel will begin in early 2016, city councillors were assured Thursday.
Municipal officials are poised to green-light final approvals for the 24-storey, $65-million hotel at the base of Queensway overlooking Okanagan Lake.
“We anticipate issuing a building permit in January,” Doug Gilchrist, a city director, told council during 2016 budget deliberations.
The news was relayed during a discussion among councillors about the wisdom of spending $350,000 on plans for a revamp of Kerry Park, the municipal land that separates the hotel development site from the water.
Did it make sense to authorize the spending, some councillors wondered, without knowing exactly when work would start on the new hotel?
Coun. Mohini Singh noted that “not a lot has been happening” on the site since council endorsed the project in the summer of 2014, apart from some test drilling earlier this fall to establish the building conditions.
Coun. Charlie Hodge wondered if any planning work for the revamp of Kerry Park might have to be revised once work on the hotel moves forward. But council heard actual work on the park upgrade won’t happen until 2017, and that what’s being approved now relates mainly to site-servicing details.
Westcorp, the builder of the new hotel, is giving the city $350,000 toward the upgrade of Kerry Park, a project that currently has an estimated budget of $4 million.
Plans are for the area around Kerry Park, stretching from Bernard Avenue over to Stuart Park, to get a pedestrian-friendly facelift in keeping with other waterfront improvements.
“It’s vitally important that we get this right,” said Coun. Luke Stack, endorsing, along with the rest of council, the preliminary design work for the improvements to Kerry Park.
The lack of apparent progress on the hotel had some people wondering if the project would follow others, such as a 26-storey residence on Bernard Avenue once proposed by the Aqulini group of Vancouver, that were approved but never built.
A spokeswoman for Westcorp said in an email later Thursday that detailed design work for the hotel has now concluded. But Gail Temple said a precise start date for construction is not yet known pending results of the test pile work done this fall.
“We have also been working on a marketing and branding exercise for the hotel,” Temple said. “It is our intention to reveal the new hotel’s name at its goundbreaking.”
The company has estimated construction would take about 22 months once work begins. All 214 rooms in the elliptical tower will have a water view, and the project also includes a convention centre, restaurant and spa.
|
via Kelowna Daily Courier
|
Prev
Linear Mode
