The City’s economic development department is requesting $100,000 from the Columbia-Shuswap Regional District Economic Opportunity Fund to help build a new visitor information centre in Revelstoke.
The request comes in a staff report to be considered at city council’s June 12 meeting.
The report from economic development director Alan Mason says the funding will allow the three partners involved in the project – the City of Revelstoke, the Revelstoke Chamber of Commerce and Community Futures Revelstoke – to proceed with the new building.
The vision is to house all these organizations and the tourism centre in a new building. However, the location of the centre is a multi-faceted controversy.
In mid-2011, one of the two parking lots adjacent to Grizzly Plaza was shaping up to be the final location for the centre, including a series of drawings produced as part of community consultations. The construction contract would have been tendered out by the city. However, the owners of the empty lot adjacent to the BC Liquor Store on the corner of Victoria Road and Campbell Avenue emerged with an alternate plan to build the new centre there.
Mason told the Times Review that the city has now opted for the lot next to the BC Liquor Store.
City council has relegated almost all discussion of the ongoing visitor centre controversy to closed meetings – including the decision to locate the centre on Campbell Avenue.
Although the Economic Opportunity Fund is administered by the CSRD, Revelstoke city council has the de facto say over where it is spent.
