The Crossroads Inn in Kamloops (Photo via Google Maps)

A major overhaul to a building used for social housing in downtown Kamloops is expected to get underway in the Spring.

The Crossroads Inn at Seymour and 6th, which is currently run by the Ask Wellness Society, will see nine units on the first floor converted into multi-family, long-term rental units.

“A major retrofit with PTAC units, new flooring, new kitchen units, new plumbing and heating systems and new lighting,” said Ask Wellness CEO Bob Hughes. “Almost as much as you could do within the building within that footprint.”

The remaining 42 units upstairs will also have kitchenettes installed in them, with plans to begin construction in the Spring – provided the city signs-off on the redevelopment after public consultation.

Hughes says there will also be work done around the building itself.

“Extensive landscaping work that will be done. Paving the parking lot. Adding some vegetation and a much more private amenity space for residents,” said Hughes.

At the same time, Hughes suggests the outside work is part of a broader attempt to continue gentrifying the location itself.

“When Interior Health had the supervised consumption service on the property, it was too high of a traffic area and it was negatively impacting the neighborhood,” Hughes told Radio NL.  “We pushed that that service could no longer happen on that site, and I think we saw a decline in street-level activity around there.”

The Crossroads Inn was first developed as a hotel, and was formerly known as the infamous Rafter G, before Ask Wellness eventually took control of it in 2011 and turned it into a social housing facility.