By Steve Hubrecht
The past half decade or so has seen brand-new multi-million dollar community centres go up in both Invermere and Radium Hot Springs, and now Canal Flats has just taken the first ever-so-small step toward its own possible new civic centre.
The Columbia Valley Centre opened in Invermere in 2017. A year later, Radium Hot Springs inaugurated the Radium Hot Springs Centre. This left the village of Canal Flats as the only incorporated municipality in the valley without a new community hall.
It now seems that may possibly change, although not any time soon. The project is not a certain bet and even if it does go ahead, it will be years before ground is broken, much less any ribbons cut. But a baby step taken in the direction of a new Canal Flats facility is still a step; earlier this month Canal Flats council unanimously agreed to include $50,000 in the village’s 2024 budget for architectural design of a new civic centre.
The move comes after Canal Flats residents voted in favour of hiring a professional to create designs and examine potential costs involved with a new community hall. The vote was a plebiscite held at the same time as the 2022 Canal Flats village election last October. The tally of the plebiscite was 177 voters (56 per cent) in favour of the idea, and 138 voters (44 per cent) opposed.
Canal Flats staff have emphasized that the plebiscite was non-binding and that it is council’s choice to to go ahead with this project or to abandon it. By pushing the $50,000 to the 2024 budget, the project is now ‘on the books’ but will not affect the budget in 2023.
Vancouver-based architectural firm Urban Arts Architecture had previously — back in January 2021 — given the Canal Flats council of the time, an expression of interest in doing a civic centre feasibility study. The quote the firm sent then was for $32,750 and included public consultation, architectural design and class C cost estimates.
The firm is already familiar with the Columbia Valley — Urban Arts Architecture designed the Radium Hot Springs Centre. That design later won a Wood WORKS! B.C. Community Recognition Award for its striking design and innovative use of wood, which included the province’s first dowel-laminated timber roof structure.
Canal Flats staff have pointed out that if the village has a ‘shelf-ready’ design, it will be easier to pursue any grants that could help fund some of the work. The costs of creating a new community hall would almost certainly far exceed any grant funding, however, and building such a centre would likely require a village referendum on borrowing money to fund its construction.
