Will community be willing to invest in a new use for Stuart Wood?
KAMLOOPS — Stuart Wood School is a good place for a museum. It would have been a good place for other things, too, but a museum is within the community’s reach when it comes to public spaces.
There are those who will object, and already have, to the cost of renovating the grand old building for a museum, just as they worried about what the cost would have been to renovate it and keep it as a school. They would prefer it be torn down because they believe that, of all the options, it would be the cheapest. And anything that saves taxes must be a good thing.
Such people suffer from a disease that causes them to lack vision. It’s degenerative and can be highly debilitating for a community, preventing it from — as educators like to put it — reaching its full potential.
Old buildings are a pain in the ass if you let them be. The wrecking ball has been the first choice for a great many heritage buildings in Kamloops, because it’s the easy, cheapest choice. We should be pleased that Stuart Wood will not be one of them, despite the inclinations of the creatively blind.