Tourism Kelowna hoping for approval of revamped visitor centre downtown

Tourism Kelowna has redone the plan for a new visitor centre downtown and will be applying for rezoning of the lot to the City of Kelowna.

The build would require the City to allow City-owned parking lot at Queensway and Mill Street to be rezoned. According to Tourism Kelowna, the parking lot is slated to be closed as part of the new hotel project anyway and they would lease this land from the City.

The proposal they have recently put together is different from the one they announced earlier this year.

“We started this public process in March. We listened to the people of Kelowna and have made improvements to our plan,” Tourism Kelowna chair Daniel Bibby said. “We realigned the building to remove it entirely from the Simpson Covenant.

“Respecting the Covenant was important to both the citizens of Kelowna and City Council.”

In the new proposal, they’ve gotten rid of the office space so now the building will only be for serving visitors and residents. The building plan covers 3,000 square feet, 40 per cent smaller than the original proposal.

“We were able to find new office space to rent at a cost saving that allows us to stay within our overall budget,” Tourism Kelowna CEO Nancy Cameron said. “The visitor centre construction cost drops from $3.5 million to $2.8 million as a result.

“Tourism Kelowna is responsible for raising or borrowing the entire amount to build the centre.”

The building will be set back from the water’s edge allowing for the expansion of the waterfront area between Stuart Park and Kerry Park.

The new visitor centre would replace the current centre located on Harvey Avenue, which continues to see declining usage.

In fact, 78 per cent of North American visitor centres have moved off highways and into high volume pedestrian areas in order to bring in more visitors. Currently, about 440,000 people walk along the waterfront every year. By placing the new visitor centre there, Tourism Kelowna hopes to influence people to see and do more, which in turn results in additional spending at local businesses, they argue.

Features of the new building would include both interactive and storyboard displays to educate visitors about Kelowna’s heritage, attractions and more, personal trip counselling services, a sales area for local Kelowna businesses and souvenirs, ticket sales for tours and events and public washrooms.

Tourism Kelowna will hold a public information session on Nov. 9 at the site of the proposed visitor centre to collect feedback from the public.