For the better part of a decade, the Nicola Valley Community Theatre Society (NVCTS) has been working towards constructing a movie theatre and performing arts centre on their property in the Railyard Mall.
However, in a presentation made to council at the regular council meeting of Feb. 22, the NVCTS announced that this would no longer be their plan.
Despite having secured the land and raising $1.3 million through donations and funding applications, the Society has come to the realization that the much needed provincial government funding they had been banking on is not likely to materialize.
“It is now obvious that infrastructure funding for our existing model will not be available,” reads the report presented to council by Rich Hodson, a director of the NVCTS.
Although the Society explored possible partnerships, which would increase the likelihood of funding, both a local First Nation band and Canadian theatre company turned down partnership requests.
“We reached out to existing theatre companies, which is the May Theatre company that’s in Saskatchewan, Alberta and Castlegar,” explained Hodson.
“They were a little bit interested but not enough to come up with a worthwhile proposal.”
As such, the NVCTS has decided to sell the land at the Railyard Mall that they had acquired for the theatre project, and turn over their approximately $1.3 million in funds to the City of Merritt as a “nest egg” for construction of a Performing Arts Theatre and Convention Centre.
“NVCTS would act as an advisor to the City of Merritt to build a Performing Arts Theatre,” the report to council reads.
“This would meet the needs of the City of Merritt to have a full convention centre. The Performing Arts Theatre could also provide a venue for live music and theatre performances and have movie showing capabilities.”
NVCTS has suggested that an ideal location for the convention centre and performing arts theatre would be either attached or directly next to the Civic Centre, which would expand that facility’s usefulness to the community and reduce the cost of the new project by utilizing the existing infrastructure of the Civic Centre such as the washrooms, cooking facilities and meeting rooms.
Councillor Tony Luck questioned the timing of the project, and the City taking on additional costs.
“If we build it and then the City takes it over that means more staff and that kind of thing, and as you know with the floods and everything, we’re struggling a little bit,” said Luck.
“There’s going to be a lot of infrastructure to rebuild here.”
He questioned whether the NVCTS would be interested in forming a partnership in which they would operate the facility if the City were to take on the construction and capital costs.
Hodson said that, although they hadn’t considered it, the society could “entertain that thought.”
The proposal for the City to take over the project will be returned to the council table, along with a staff report, at the council meeting of March 8, 2022, at which time council are expected to debate the matter fully and vote.
