It’s an exciting time for the Kamloops North Shore, according to the Executive Director of the NSBIA after a $40 million investment by the Cooper Family at two locations.

Jeremy Heighton says both the new Kamloops Search and Rescue headquarters on 8th Street and the 73-unit housing development on Ord Road shows that the North Shore remains a great place for people to invest in.

“It’s one more example of how community leadership on the North Shore continues to bring us closer and closer to our vision of creating a much more vibrant community,” he told NL. “We’re excited to have some great organizations housed in their buildings on 8th Street and we’re thrilled for the new housing development that’s going to go out on Ord Road as well.”

He says the Cooper Family are great supporters of both the North Shore and the Kamloops community in general.

“Throughout the Shore, we’ve had large developers committing to many projects here,” Heighton added. “This is another large scale project, and other organizations are also working on projects here on the North Shore. The intent is to create a vibrancy and a density that allows us as a community to flourish and thrive.”

As for how much knowledge they had about the nature of the announcement, Heighton says they knew something was happening, but they didn’t know the extent of it.

“We’ve been aware for sometime that there were project ideas and concept plans being drawn up on a number of sites up here on the North Shore. When the final announcement came, we were pleasantly surprised by what it ended up being. We are sort of the touchstone on a lot of projects, so we were aware of it but not necessarily aware of the scale.”

The new KSAR headquarters will be ready to move into by the end of 2020, while the Ord Road development is expected to break ground this fall, and be ready in 42 months.