Retired portion of Nechako centre would make great seniors centre.
Council has long since wanted to do something with the decrepit half of the Nechako Centre. I’ve began thinking of a few ideas, and heres what I came up with.
The back half of the Nechako Centre has treamendous potential, a building of this size yields some great oppurtunities. Although a new seniors centre has been established next to Riverlodge, that doesnt lend to say another centre would go unused. The upstairs of the old Nechacko Centre could be turned into some sort of “bachelor suite” seniors condos (I’ve never been upstairs, therefore can’t confirm if the old offices would be able to accomodate this). The old large shop easy, could be turned into a large seniors centre, with TV’s, pool tables, shuffle board and possibly carpet bowling. To the right of the shop easy, where Don Rocco’s restaurant is, could be turned into a coffee shop where both seniors and others could go to socialize (who knows maybe the seniors society could run coffee shop as a profit generating entity). As far as parking goes, the back half of the Nechao centre has an enormous amount of parking, and the old loading ramp of the shop easy could be converted to support private parking for the new condo owners. In the end, the city would no longer have an eyesore, but a vibrant place for seniors to use.
Now how would one go about doing this?
In terms carrying out the whole project, one could go about it two ways.
First off the city or seniors group could purchase the building, hire a contractor to perform the renovation, then sell/rent the condos to those looking for a maintenance free condo.
Secondly, the district or private individual could work with the owner of the centre, and acting as a broker could arrange for the renovations, sale of the condos and the leasing of the premises to the seniors group. Therefore the current centre owner would not have to take as much risk, nor do as much work.
Just a thought,
Mark
Hmmmm – I can see the complaints from seniors about the “racket” going on over at the Skate park already… Or that the kids that are simply hanging out there and up to no good, are causing problems for them in some way.
I’d prefer to see our seniors in the downtown core area – it gives them better access to shopping if they need to walk to their doctors appointment or lab for tests. Unless we move the skatepark downtown and add more doctors offices and dine-in places (somewhere for them to go have tea and a chat with friends)
I see keeping Nechako centre as a commercial area (simply because of that park) Updating the building and putting in things like a “Ye Olde ice cream shoppe” or Fish & chip shoppe, an arcade ..&/or maybe billiards, (or some such thing) would maybe be better? – Something perhaps to keep our youths busy and “distracted” instead of bored out of their skulls so much that they “create” their own kind of fun…and we’ve all seen what that usually entails…
or….
perhaps a Multiplex cinema, since we won’t have a theatre in town anymore – I really like drive-ins but with the amount of rain we get here – it wouldn’t be a viable alternative.
Sheila
| Posted 4 years, 10 months agoOn another note: I think the owner should just put it up for sale and let the new owner/s upgrade or demo it.
| Posted 4 years, 10 months agoHello Sheila, I can understand what you mean about the skate park clashing with the seniors centre. I like some of your ideas, and I’m sure we would all agree that any endeavor would be better than the current vacant skeleton. As far as the theater goes, all I can say is it will be a sad day in Kitimat when it closes to the public. I’ve been thinking of ways to invite another “Famous Players” or “Silver City” to the area, the questions is where to put it? We don’t have an area large enough to support it. Got any ideas?
Mark
| Posted 4 years, 10 months agoWhat about in behind Mountainview Square? It’s all bush! and then there’d be a parking lot for it’s customer’s too, already there – vwella! Add a Taco Bell and a Joey’s Only in MouitainView and you’re set.
| Posted 4 years, 10 months agoIs the old hospital site a viable option? Is it still owned by the NHA? It is a sad day that Kitimat won’t have a theatre and one can hope that it won’t be long until a new one opens.
Would we be able to support a Silver City or Famous Players? It would be a draw for Terrace people to come to Kitimat!
Julie
| Posted 4 years, 10 months agoHello Sheila, the vacant piece of land adjacent to the Kiwanis Village and connected to the large mountainview square parking lot would make a great theatre location. I believe this piece of land is owned by city, maybe they could help broker a deal with a potential owner. AS far as the franchises go, I too would like to see a view more around town. Unfortunately we have developed a bad rep and a lot of these franchises are afraid to develop here. However, I think its time for a change and hope we can convice these franchisors that we are ready to change.
| Posted 4 years, 10 months agoHello Julie,
Thanks for your interest in the website. And as far as the old hospital site goes, I’m sure it would make a great theatre and possibly cultural/arts centre. In the hope to open a new theatre I don’t think any potential site can be ruled out. The community (I hope) and myself would be open to any potential ideas. As far as I know NHA still owns this site, it will be put up for action (I don’t know when?), and the city has first right to refusal (if they can meet the highest bid they have the right to purchase it first). The city has alotted $300,000 to purchase the site. They would like to resell it to a developer to build a hotel/conference center, but a theatre may be another great option.
Mark
| Posted 4 years, 10 months agoJulie,
As far as a Silver City or Famous players, I think we could support it. The Nechako Theatre in Kitimat used to view alot of movies before the Tillicum Twin Theatre in Terrace, and believe it or not alot of people used to drive to Kitimat from Terrace to watch the movies 2-3 weeks ahead of time. We could easily see this happen with the development of a new state of the art theatre. I will be investigating the potential development of a new theatre further, and hope to involve the chamber of commerce and appropriate people to get the idea going.
Mark
| Posted 4 years, 10 months agoJust stumbled across this thread and wondered where it went – I am the volunteer manager of the Al Whittle theatre in the Acadia Cinema building. If you look at our website you can get an idea of exactly what we did.
| Posted 4 years, 2 months agoBill Z.