A new chapter begins for Vernon's infamous Green Valley Motel | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
Subscribe

Would you like to subscribe to our newsletter?

Current Conditions Mainly Sunny  11.2°C

Vernon News

A new chapter begins for Vernon's infamous Green Valley Motel

Hardial Chahal, the co-owner of the new Okanagan Royal Park Motel.

VERNON - It’s out with the old, in with the new at a prominent Vernon motel.

The Okanagan Royal Park Inn, formerly the Green Valley Motel, is a very different place now that Hardial Chahal and his business partner Jasbinder Purewal have taken it over.

“We want to fix up everything,” Chahal says. “New name, new sign, new paint — new everything, and rent like a proper motel.”

The motel sold earlier this year for roughly $1 million after a couple years on the market. Located across from Polson Park beside the busy intersection of Highway 97 and Highway 6, the motel was known in the past for illegal activity and was a frequent destination for the RCMP but Chahal says that’s all changing.

“No more drug problems or violence, no trouble here,” Chahal says.

From Punjab, India, Chahal and his family were sponsored to Vernon in 1993. He worked for several years in the orchard industry, and later opened various business, including a corner store and women’s clothing shop. For many years now, he’s been buying, fixing up and selling homes and has also owned and operated the Twin Creeks Motel in Lumby for the past eight years.

The rooms at the Okanagan Royal Park Inn have all been gutted and refurbished with new windows, floors, bathrooms, beds and appliances. Kitchenettes feature bright cabinets and new quartz countertops. Holes in the walls have been filled and all the garbage left behind by old tenants hauled away.

As a longtime Vernon resident, Chahal says it bothered him to see such an eyesore at the city’s main entrance. That’s a big part of why he decided to buy it and take it in a new direction.

“It looked dirty. Whenever we drove by I said ‘why would somebody do this? Garbage everywhere. Policemen here, ambulance here, news on the TV,’” he says.

Underneath the garbage, he saw the potential.

“It’s a nice location, close to the park. It’s waterfront on one side,” he says, indicating the creek that flows past the back of the building.

Chahal says the Okanagan Royal Park Inn will cater to both tourists and locals, although long-term residents will only be considered on a case-by-case basis if they prove to be good tenants. Units can be rented on a daily or weekly basis, up to 28 days — no monthly rentals.

“If you don’t pay rent, you go,” he says.

Now that the building is enjoying a makeover, Chahal says a couple groups have approached him to see if he’d sell. He declined, because he wants to personally see that the motel is run properly.

He expects to open the motel in one to two weeks time — after all the finishing touches are complete on the roughly six-month renovation.

“We’ve had the whole family, and children’s friends, lots of people helping,” he says.


To contact a reporter for this story, email Charlotte Helston or call 250-309-5230 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above. 

News from © iNFOnews, 2017
iNFOnews

  • Popular penticton News
View Site in: Desktop | Mobile