
The new 112-unit Sunrise Centre building at Sixth and Victoria in Kamloops. (Photo via Victor Kaisar)
A new rental housing building with 112 units at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Victoria Street in downtown Kamloops has finally opened its doors.
Sunrise Centre will be operated by the Centre for Seniors’ Information BC Interior (CSI Kamloops), and Operations Manager, Brenda Prevost, tells NL News that 30 residents are currently moving in to their new homes.
“It has been a load road, but we are ecstatically happy that we finally have an affordable housing building right in the downtown core where it is accessible to so many amenities,” she said. “The housing is basically geared to individuals who are low income or having difficulty with the standard costs, so affordable housing is what we like to refer to it as.
“We look at their income and rent is calculated under the guidelines of the BC Housing registry.”
Construction began in late 2019 with an initial completion date in Fall 2020. That was eventually pushed back to summer 2021, though Prevost at that time told NL News that construction timelines had not changed even with challenges from COVID-19.
“It definitely has had some issues raised by lack of supply of product, that has been difficult in some areas,” Prevost said Friday, noting that while work is still taking place on the ground floor commercial units, there is no work taking place inside on any of the five residential floors.
“As far as why the project took as long as it did, that is something that I can’t really speak to because it was totally under the control of the developer.”
Rent will range from $375 for a studio apartment to $1,150 for a two-bedroom apartment, and Prevost expects all of the units to be occupied by early to mid March.
“We do have some availability,” she said.” What we recommend people do is to get in touch with the Centre for Seniors Information or go onto the BC Housing Registry, and submit their application through that site. Then we can pull those off of the registry if they indicate that Sunrise Centre is where they would like to move into.”
The Province, through BC Housing, provided $11.2 million towards the project. The Centre for Seniors Information will also get $466,000 in operating funding each year.