While there will be no new downtown BCLC headquarters in Kamloops, the crown corporation is reassuring Kamloopsians that the headquarters isn’t going anyway.

Kamloops Councillor and downtown business owner Mike O’Reilly is taking that statement with a grain of salt.

“Think we’ve heard as recently as July that they were 100 per cent committed to this project getting the green light,” O’Reilly said on the NL Morning News on January 18. “So you have to take that for what it’s worth.”

“What keeps me up at night is where the head office for BCLC going to be. I think we need to work hard as a city to have that commitment happen and stay in Kamloops.”

According to Kamloops-South Thompson MLA Todd Stone, a new BCLC headquarters could have brought between 200 and 250 new jobs to the downtown.

“What you see is that economic spinoff of having people working downtown,” added O’Reilly, who noted it’s hard to pinpoint how much of business he gets from BCLC employees downtown.

“My concern now is where those jobs are going to go and how are we going to get them in Kamloops, and not the big fancy shiny building.”

In an interview with Radio NL, BCLC CEO Jim Lightbody said the costs of the new building would have been more than $100-million, and that the current headquarters are well maintained.

BCLC currently employs about 450 people in Kamloops.