If you still have questions about the proposed performing arts centre another open house is planned

KAMLOOPS – With a referendum on the horizon, the Kamloops Central Business Improvement Association is planning an open house next month to discuss the proposed performing arts centre.

Anyone with questions about the project is invited to attend Thursday, Oct. 8, at the Rex on 417 Seymour Street. The first session runs between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. followed by a second between 4:00 and 6:30 p.m.

The Downtown Association has joined a coalition of Kamloops businesses and cultural groups who support building a performing arts centre.

Meanwhile, the Kamloops Voter’s Society will be hosting a debate on the performing arts centre during Culture Days this weekend, Saturday, Sept. 26. Moderated by Thompson Rivers University lecturer John O’Fee, the debate will take place between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. in Room 1015 of the university’s International Building.

The referendum will be held on Saturday, Nov. 7.

It will ask Kamloops residents if they are in favour of taking on roughly $49 million worth of debt to finance the construction of a performing arts centre. Holding the referendum is expected to cost $160,000.

The plan is to build the centre on the site of the former Daily News building on Seymour Street and is expected to cost $90 million, with $25 million of that slated for a parkade.

The centre will be paid for with a one percent increase in property taxes in 2016 and an additional one per cent in 2017, which translates into roughly $40 dollars per household per year for 20 years.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Dana Reynolds at dreynolds@infonews.ca or call 250-819-6089. To contact an editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.

— This story was updated at 10:20 a.m., Oct. 8, 2015, to correct a date.