Growing Communities projects meant to make Kamloops more liveable

KAMLOOPS – The City of Kamloops’ $15.7 million share of the one-time $1 billion Growing Communities Fund will be making the city more livable, according to city councillors.

A state-of-the-art overpass is just one of three big projects being funded.

The overpass is estimated to cost $10 million, but only half will be built on the city’s dime. The other $5 million will be supplied by Thompson Rivers University.

“It’s sort of an unusual relationship, having a university funding a piece of municipal infrastructure,” Matt Milovick, TRU VP OF Administration and Finance told CFJC News. “But we are doing it, I think, because it brings the project here a lot sooner than having the city have to save up for years and years.”

According to Milovick, heavy traffic at the Summit-Columbia intersection and a matter of convenience has many students jay-walking to access the university campus. He says as the university and the city grow, so will the problems.

“I’d say in the next five years, we are going to have 750 of our students living across the street,” Milovick said. “We need the bridge, we want to keep our students safe so the time is now and there’s an opportunity.”

Milovick says they hope to have the project completed by the fall of 2024.

If all goes to plan, Riverside Park will have a new outdoor skating rink in the next year or so.

“That’s something we wanted to do last term but we couldn’t get any grant money for it, so then this money came along and it makes sense to do that,” City Councillor Dale Bass explained.

The project is estimated at $5.4 million and because a lot of the underground infrastructure was done when the spray park was put in the project should be able to move a lot faster.

$1 million dollars will be set aside as seed funding to launch projects identified in the city’s Build Kamloops plan.

Image Credit: TRU

The remaining $4 million was put in a separate savings account, which will go toward facilities Kamloops needs, including a performing arts center, new pools and ice rinks and an upgraded RCMP detachment.

“Yesterday, was just the ‘this would be fun to spend money on,’ we’ll have to have the serious talk when it goes to council,” Bass said.

Now that the projects have been highlighted, they will still need to be approved by council with more in-depth budgets. Bass expects this to happen sometime in the next month.

“It’s a chance to stand up and do good things, because we have to resurface roads anyhow. We have to replace sewers anyhow,” Bass explained. “We don’t have to build a Summit overpass but we can. We don’t have to build a skating rink in the park but we can. People will use it and it just makes the city more liveable.”

Image Credit: TRU