At the last Council meeting, the District of 100 Mile House approved by a unanimous vote to assume ownership and commit to renovations and upgrades at the Community Hall.
Councillor Maureen Pinkney said they were approached by the Community Club Society that was having difficulty in maintaining the hall themselves, especially after 2 years of COVID and not being able to get any rental income.
She added that everyone on Council was on the same page to save one of the few remaining older facilities in the community.
“Everyone is on the same page to save it.” Pinkney said, “The downside is if we weren’t able to take it over, I mean, it could have been torn down and another commercial building put up. Everyone was absolutely unanimous to say no, no, we need this. We only have a few old buildings and this is one of them. As a matter of fact, my grandfather helped build the original one so it’s kind of near and dear to my heart and this one is one definitely worth saving.”
Work on the upgrades to the building is expected to start next year and Pinkney said they already have a concept in place for it.
“The kitchen will be a full commercial kitchen, so really double the size of what is there now, four washrooms and upgrades as the furnaces in the current building are 40 years old, so we’ll be able to have a facility that can be used by the whole community. There are a lot of uses besides your typical community hall wedding rentals type of things. And it’s right in the heart of our downtown core so it already gets a lot of us and we envision that once it’s remodeled it will be used even more.”
Pinkney added that she has already been in touch with the families of the signature murals on the community hall and that the District will be looking for places to relocate them which is all part of the building cost of revamping the new one.