North Shore community centre gets green light | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
Subscribe

Would you like to subscribe to our newsletter?

Kamloops News

North Shore community centre gets green light

The former John Tod School will be transformed into a community centre for the North Shore over the next several months.

KAMLOOPS — The $1.84 million contract for the redevelopment of the former John Tod School has been approved by council and construction of the new North Shore community centre is set to begin immediately.

Only one bid was submitted during the tender process and while it came in just above budget staff say they are confident the tenderfrom Acres Enterprises is a fair price.

Partial demolition of interior and exterior finishes, hazardous material removal, drywall, painting, flooring, utility installation and the addition of a shared lobby will all be undertaken under the scope of the project. Construction is expected to take about six months.

The $400,000 shortfall will be covered through the Tax Sale Reserve, as needed, and will not affect the tax rate set by council earlier this week.

In September council agreed to a $1.8 million option for the project, which will see enough improvements to allow the community user groups, the YMCA and the Boys and Girls Club, to get settled in and comfortable. The hope is to have the groups move in to the renovated building in September, though becaue the building is older it is expected there could be some delays.

The original budget was set at $1.5 million but after the groups all met and all the requests were included in the design the cost exceeded $3.6 million. At that point council was provided with several options and chose to go ahead with the $1.8 million option in order to fully utilize the $300,000 in grant money already approved for the project.

“We want to get it up and operating,” Parks Director Byron McCorkell said back in September. “We want to get a building that is functional and provides a community centre.”

Last year the federal government approved $250,000 in grant money for the project and the project was sent to tender earlier this year. The contract needed to be awarded by the end of March 2014 in order to secure the government grant.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Jennifer Stahn at jstahn@infotelnews.ca or call 250-819-3723. To contact an editor, email mjones@infotelnews.ca or call 250-718-2724.

-This story was edited at 3:29 p.m., March 28, 2014, to include the approval from council.

News from © iNFOnews, 2014
iNFOnews

  • Popular vernon News
View Site in: Desktop | Mobile