Kamloops Symphony Artistic Director Dina Gilbert (Image Credit: Kamloops Symphony)

By Doug Collins

One Man's Opinion

COLLINS: Is it now or never for a new performing arts centre?

Jan 28, 2024 | 6:00 AM

AFTER YEARS OF FIDDLING AROUND, the city is getting serious again about some new amenities, like a new performing arts centre (PAC) and new recreation facilities like a swimming pool and new ice surfaces. Sadly, the citizens of Kamloops may have fiddled too much and let the finances burn up an opportunity we may never see again.

The Build Kamloops committee is comprised of several councillors, city staff and community volunteers. They have a mandate to restore our prominence as Canada’s Tournament Capital, improve our reputation as a premier arts and cultural destination and keep pace with our recreation needs as Canada’s third fastest-growing city (this all coming from the City’s website).

Kamloops taxpayers have made terrible mistakes in the past. We paid way too much to build the Sandman Centre, with no parking. To put a PAC aside again would pretty much kill the project.

It’s not just the centre itself and the planning and costs to make it work for a variety of users, but it must have a healthy dose of parking stalls because we are unable to handle parking for more than one major event at a time as it is. Then if we tack on other priorities like an aquatics centre (probably for the North Shore), ice sheets, an indoor soccer dome, a curling centre and some sort of seniors complex, we are looking at a huge cost. A. HUGE. HUGE. COST.

In order to sell this to the public we have to put a campaign together to instill the virtues of having these valuable resources available.

Sound Off

SOUND OFF: How to reduce food waste in Kamloops during the festive season

4h ago

Looped In

LOOPED IN WITH NIKKI OMEN: December 12, 2024

22h ago

One Man's Opinion

COLLINS: North Shore BIA working hard to develop a 'happening place'

Dec 12, 2024

The PAC is the first priority. We have the Sagebrush Theatre, which is always busy and really not properly designed for both theatre and music. It’s a decent, multi-purpose facility but not an elite space. Kelson Hall is a nice little space, but each of the two halls are quite small, and only one has fixed seats. It was built with the idea of tying it into a larger PAC. The Pavilion Theatre is still around and it’s okay for what it’s used for. The box office, construction rooms for set-building and offices for some of the administrative staff are there as well.

We’ve tried various approaches to get taxpayers to budge but to no avail. But if we’re going to make it happen this time, we have to do it right. Good call by Councillor Dale Bass to suggest Ron Fawcett be brought to a committee meeting to discuss future plans. Ron and his family have a lot of experience in these kinds of projects so maybe he’ll have some creative way to move this forward.

Really, it simply boils down to this. How much are you willing to pay to get the job done? The PAC is certainly one of the most expensive of the priorities, but it’s vital to the future of the city and it’s long overdue.

Let’s hope the Build Kamloops Committee gets it right. Failure is not an option.

I’m Doug Collins and that’s One Man’s Opinion.

——

Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.