Kamloops council hears plea for dedicated event space to host agricultural events

Gillis also said a dedicated facility would be able to support large-scale conventions and industry trade shows, adding agriculture is being “pushed out” of larger centres like the Lower Mainland and Kelowna.

“Kamloops has the opportunity to lead in the Interior for generations to come,” Gillis added.

While Gillis’ presentation to council included a rough rendering of a potential event space, there was no formal motion to support the construction of such a facility.

That said, Kamloops councillor Katie Neustaeter spoke in favour of the proposal and said it was “thrilling” to see young people engaged in agriculture, calling it a “foundational part of Kamloops’ identity.”

“We know projects are most likely to be successful if there is a grassroots group to get behind it and I think this is something in high demand in our community,” Neustaeter said.

“It is important that we have that grassroots movement that begins the momentum on something like this. The performing arts centre came to fruition [as part of Build Kamloops] as a dedicated number of people put their hands to that file.”

While the City of Kamloops is in the process of building a number of facilities through Build Kamloops, there has been no mention of an Agriplex as part of that multi-million-dollar initiative.

“We have heard strongly from residents for such a complex to be included, however it was not identified in the Recreation Master Plan, which is the guiding document behind Build Kamloops,” a City of Kamloops statement said.

“In the future, we will revisit the Recreation Master Plan and engage the public [and] that would be an ideal opportunity for folks wanting an Agriplex to get involved, engaged and have their voices heard.”

Gillis told council she is “fairly confident” that her organization would be able to fund the construction of a new agricultural event centre if it had access to a suitable plot of land.

“We have had a number of initiatives that have, for a variety of reasons, over the years not come to fruition,” Gillis said. “Our challenge is securing land, and it’s hard to generate excitement and enthusiasm around a project that has no place.

“I have absolute confidence that if we had a site, we would be able to generate that kind of enthusiasm and we would be able to fund construction.”

Gillis added a suitable location for such a facility in Kamloops would be somewhere along the east-west corridor. She also said the ideal plot of land would be between 30 and 90 acres in size.

“We could probably use 90 acres and do a lot of research activity in cooperation with Thompson Rivers University — who is interested in some kind of a facility like that,” Gillis said. “If we can’t get that, we can build what we need probably on 30 to 40 acres.

“We’re pretty confident that we could fill it most weekends and many weeks of the year.”

When asked by Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson who the best point of contact would be if people had ideas that could help get the facility built, Gillis suggested Doug Haughton, who serves as the Knutsford-area director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board.

She also said they won’t be opposed if the city decided to go ahead and build an event space for agriculture.

“The Provincial Winter Fair is under the umbrella of the Kamloops Exhibition Association (KXA). It is an event that is, for lack of a better term, owned by the KXA. That is our parent organization and that’s who ultimately would manage a facility unless the city built a facility without them, which would be fine with us, too,” Gillis said.

“To be clear, we just want a facility. You can structure it however you want, if you want to be involved.”

by Victor Kaisar

Kamloops council hears plea for dedicated event space to host agricultural events

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