Sun Peaks Mountain Resort Municipality (SPMRM) is continuing to see progress on a number of capital projects with some delays due to supply and labour shortages.
Top of mind for many community members is the new daycare as well as the new school portables, both located east of P5. Shane Bourke, SPMRM’s chief administrative officer, said preparation of the site is near completion.
“The school has moved in their portables and began hooking them up. I’ll leave it to them when they decide to open them for the kids,” Bourke said. “We have ordered modulars for the daycare to arrive. Just due to some of the factors in costs and supply chains, we’re expecting delivery of those in April pending weather conditions.”
This past spring, the municipality received a $1.8 million provincial grant to build the daycare, which was originally set to be completed by the end of the year. Bourke said the new expected opening date is May or June.
In the meantime, SPMRM will hire an operator to begin planning the licensing, fees and scheduling.
Additionally, the community plaza project is also underway.
“The plaza project’s faced our most significant cost increases and labour challenges, and has meant we’ve had to redesign the plaza here over the summer and are still working on just finalizing a contractor for that,” Bourke said.
“But the project is still proceeding and we plan to start up again in the spring to open the project by the end of next summer.”
The plaza will include a gathering space with seating, an area for performances, an adaptive playground and a small water fountain splash park.
This comes after a $898,241 provincial grant, as well as contributions from Tourism Sun Peaks, Rotary Sun Peaks and Adaptive Sports Sun Peaks.
The plaza will be built at the current location of the tennis courts, and new tennis and pickleball courts will be built east of P5. Bourke said the final surfacing will be completed in June and the courts will be open for use by July 1, 2023.
Bourke said the municipality has also been considering bringing the pool back into operation as part of the plaza. SPMRM had an engineer and pool consultant put together a report to identify the costs.
“It is estimated to be about $300,000 for us to bring the pool into compliance with Interior Health,” Bourke said.
“We have submitted a grant to the province to look at covering a substantial portion of these costs. If we are successful in the grant, it is a project I’ll bring forward to the new council to consider as a 2023 capital project to complete.”
A project with an earlier completion date is the stage, which will be an enclosed space for concerts and events on the north side of the ice rink. This project received a $700,000 provincial grant and $299,000 from Tourism Sun Peaks.
Bourke said SPMRM is waiting on some siding to be delivered, but the plan is for the stage to be completed by the end of November with concerts scheduled for 2023.
Help us bring you more local news
SPIN has been able to serve Sun Peaks as its sole news source for over 20 years thanks to the overwhelming support of our community. Join over 126 of your neighbours and become a monthly or yearly member so that we can continue to regularly publish the digital newsletters and stories our readers rely on.
