Hub Project Milestones
December 2, 2021
Community non-profit groups meet at the Chamber of Commerce office to discuss our shared needs and commit to the Hub project.
December 14, 2021
Council grants support in principle for the Hub project and requests a business case and a feasibility study as next steps.
April 11, 2022
RFP to hire "Architectural Prime Services for Peachland Hub Project" was released.
April 19, 2022
The Peachland Hub - Business Case V1 is presented to Council (this document contained all information to satisfy Council's request for a business case and a feasibility study).
THAT Council provides the Peachland Hub Society and their partners, the Peachland Wellness Center and Peachland Food Bank, the authority to proceed with the Peachland Hub project, including the expansion of the 50+ Activity Center, construction of an adjacent annex building on the north side of Cousins Park, as well as management and control of these buildings for a minimum of 10 years; and FURTHER THAT Council directs Administration to provide a letter of intent to lease the 50+ Activity Center to the Peachland Wellness Society, and adjacent proposed annex building to the Peachland Food Bank, for the purpose of accommodating local non-profit societies and volunteers that are affiliated with the Peachland Hub Society.
Council approved the following motion:
May 12, 2022
Urban Arts Architecture Ltd. is selected as the Architect for the Peachland Hub Project.
May 25, 2022
The community non-profit groups and District staff meet for a Visioning Workshop hosted by the UAA team.
Sept 17, 2022
The Peachland Hub Steering Committee hosted a Public Open House at the 50+ Activity Centre for the community to come and see the progress with the Hub design process and to share our funding goals and initiatives.
November 2022
Urban Arts submits the final report for the "Peachland Hub Schematic Design and Energy Study".
Dec 12, 2022
Community fundraising passes the $250,000 mark!
Dec 20, 2022
FCM Green Municipal Fund funding decision is received - the grant application for $80,500 has been approved.
Jan 24, 2023
A presentation of the work and findings of the "Peachland Hub Schematic Design and Energy Study" project is given to Peachland Council.
Hub Project Updates
Peachland Hub Society
Communique - Nov 8, 2023
The Peachland Hub Society announces that, at the Nov. 6 meeting of their Organizational Committee, the decision was made to transition the Society from one dedicated to the construction of the full Hub Project to a collective supporting the smaller projects of member groups.
Unfortunately, economic conditions have created an environment in which we have been unable to reach a fundraising milestone required to make the strict construction deadline of the Green and Inclusive Community Buildings (“GICB”) fund. Our $8.3M application to GICB is still being processed, but this program will not fund any construction beyond Mar. 31, 2026. This construction deadline resulted in a fundraising need of $500K by this month to facilitate work that needed to happen this winter.
Without significant support from the provincial government, foundations, and high net-worth individuals we have been unable to meet this milestone and our “Plan A” is no longer viable (“Plan A” being the effort to construct the new Hub building on the site of the 50+ Activity Centre and the new Food Bank between it and the highway).
Accordingly, we will be winding down our “Plan A” project while continuing to support our members as their Boards make decisions about their “Plan B”. For while the Food Bank and PWC are now settled into their temporary space at 4th Street Place (a near end-of-life facility), it is just temporary, and their need to find permanent homes remains.
Although we mourn the end of “Plan A”, the Hub Society is very proud of our successes. These include: the advancement from the seed of a concept to an incredible design for a facility that would have served Peachland for many decades, the establishment of the temporary location for the Food Bank and PWC, and perhaps most importantly - the ongoing collaboration of nine disparate groups to provide much needed services to Peachlanders.
We will continue to meet regularly to ensure that we are aware of, and can be supportive of, each other’s activities and projects. And we will continue to hold events such as our markets to raise awareness within the community of our members’ projects and needs.
We want to thank all of those who have made donations to the Hub Project. You have made our successes possible, and all remaining funds will be distributed to the Food Bank and PWC in support of their ongoing new home projects.
Peachland’s Community Service Non-Profits STILL need a new and permanent home
Hub Update June 22, 2022
Welcome to the first progress update on the Peachland Hub project. It has definitely been a busy six months for the Hub volunteers since Council first gave us support in principle for the project at their December 14, 2021 meeting. Council had asked us to prepare a Business Case and Feasibility Study for them to consider prior to any decision on whether the project could proceed or not.
So we got to work!
First we formed the Peachland Hub Society, with a Steering Committee that meets once per week to guide the effort. Then we formed sub-committees (Operations, Building, Fundraising, Marketing, and Interim Space) and we set to work collecting and agreeing upon the information needed for our Business Case document (we rolled both of Council’s requests into a single document). Those efforts, and preparing the corresponding Business Case document, is what kept us all very busy through January, February and March. The completed document was submitted to staff for review in the first week of April and then shared with Council at their April 19, 2022 meeting. At that meeting, Council gave us the authorization to proceed with the project and a commitment to provide the facility to the groups on a long term lease for $1 per year.
An important item to note about the Peachland Hub project is that the project will not cost the District of Peachland (and therefore the taxpayers) any money. The District is contributing the existing 50+ Activity Centre building and additional land as needed between the 50+ building and the highway. The project is being entirely driven by the non-profit groups that will occupy the complex. This includes all designing, planning, construction, and most importantly, fund-raising for the project.
As we did all of the work for the Business Case, it became clear that the only way the Hub would ever get built is if we were successful in applying for a major government grant. The main one we identified is the Green and Inclusive Community Buildings program at Infrastructure Canada. In order to be ready to apply for this grant, we were going to need to have some design, engineering and costing work done.
So that started the work for an RFP process to hire an architecture and engineering team, and kicked off our Start-up Fundraising Campaign to have the funds for the first 'Schematic Design & Energy Study’ project. The RFP was issued on April 11, and on the closing date of May 6 we received 5 proposals to consider. After interviewing three of the candidates, Urban Arts Architecture from Vancouver was chosen as the architects for the Peachland Hub project - many of you will have seen some of their work with the new library in Summerland.
The Start-up Fundraising Campaign was intense and at times stressful as we knew that we had to raise enough money to pay for the first project before we could hire the architect team. We successfully raised $184,090 from 13 generous donors - including one exceptional donation from Emanuel Althuis (Emanuel has been a long term volunteer driver with PWC) who made a stock donation with a value of about $130,000.
Because of this we were able to start our ‘Schematic Design & Energy Study’ project. The first step was a site visit by the architecture and engineering team, a vision workshop and a sustainability workshop which all happened on May 25 and 26. The next step will be a Concept Design Review to be held with our Design Project Committee on June 21. The big item will be the Schematic Design Review some time in July as we will be holding an Open House for the public at the 50+ Activity Centre that evening to share our efforts to date.
So that brings us into our main fundraising campaign that will be multi-faceted and go on for a couple of years. We are preparing applications to family and corporate foundations across the country, and we are reaching out to community minded companies around the Valley and the province. We are hoping that all Peachlanders will recognize that Peachland’s community non-profit groups need a new and permanent home, and that they will consider making a donation in support of this project that will serve Peachlanders for decades to come. And we hope that there will be a few people like Emannuel, who have made good gains on a stock they’ve owned for 10, 20, 30 or more years, and who want to have a significant impact on this legacy project for Peachland.
Our primary appeal to individuals right now is the “3 Times for the Hub” pledge, in which you make a donation now and commit to donate the same amount again in 12 months and then again in 24 months. See our ad or contact us at info@peachlandhub.ca for more details.
Next update in about a month :)
Help Us Build
Hub Update September 2022
Welcome to the second progress update on the Peachland Hub project. It’s been about 2 ½ months since the first update - and a lot has happened.
We established a Design Project Committee (the “DPC”) to work with the Urban Arts Architecture team to move our early concepts into the Schematic Design of a viable project ready to submit grant applications.
The first conclusion we reached was that to minimize costs we needed to keep the project to one storey. So Urban Arts developed four options for us to look at - two based on renovating and expanding the existing 50+ Activity Centre building, and two based on demolition and a fresh build. All of the designs were under 13,000 sq. ft., so they would all cost less than our original 16,200 sq. ft. concept. The DPC identified elements from all design that we really liked as well as others that needed more development. Urban Arts took this feedback and came back with refined options for renovate/expand and new build.
The next big realization (and a big shock) came when Urban Arts provided us with preliminary costing information. The first observation was that the costs for both renovation/expansion and the new build were fairly equivalent, and a new build comes with much greater design flexibility and with opportunities to reduce operating costs. Armed with this information to DPC went to the Steering Committee with a recommendation that we proceed with a demolition and new build based design - which was approved.
The shock was how much constructions costs have escalated in the past couple of years and how much higher the cost per sq. ft. the Cost Estimator used when compared to what we had used in our Business Case. The result turned our $8.1M project into a $16M+ project. The impact of this will be that we are likely to need additional grants and an additional year or two of raffle and donation fundraising before the construction will be able to start.
We’ve been running our Tuesday Night Market in Cousins Park this summer. It is an excellent way to spend some time on a Tuesday evening and has been quite successful for its first year (although we really could use more Peachlanders coming down and visiting it). We’ve also had a presence at the Sunday Market to give people a chance to ask us about the Hub.
Our “Make a 3 Times for the Hub Pledge” campaign has gotten off to a slow start. But we are sure the excitement from our upcoming Open House will motivate Peachlanders to start showing their support.
Talking about our Open House, it will be held on Saturday September 17th at the 50+ Activity Centre from 10am to 3pm. Stop by anytime to talk with the Steering Committee and the Urban Arts design team and give us some feedback. We will also be holding two presentations during the event - one at 10:30am and one at 2:30pm.
We are very excited as we just received our licenses so we will be launching our first two raffles this week!
Our “Help Us Build Car Raffle - Classic Mercedes Edition” will be for a blue 1982 Mercedes 380SL with the draw happening during the Community Christmas Dinner at the 50+ on Christmas Day. Our “Help Us Build 50/50 Raffle - Build the Food Bank” will raise funds specifically for the Annex Building for the Food Bank; it will have a potential pot of $250,000 and the draw will be held during the Light-Up Celebrations at the Heritage Park gazebo. Tickets will be available online shortly - follow our Facebook page, website, and watch for posters for more details.
Come talk to us at the Tuesday or Sunday markets, or at the Open House, or contact us at info@peachlandhub.ca to learn more.
Stay tuned for more updates
Help Us Build
Become a "Hub Buddy"
The Peachland Hub is looking for volunteers to "Help Us Build" the Hub. We are planning a number of fundraising events and would greatly appreciate your help. To volunteer click the "Contacts" button and email any of the key organizers listed on the page. It's just that easy. Thank you