Convention centre prepping for $1.7-million renovation
Sometime this month, the venue most people know as the Kamloops Convention Centre will be closed and a $1.7-million renovation project will begin.
When it reopens for events later in the year, the site will have a new look, said Wade Sutton, director of food and beverage at the Coast Kamloops Hotel and Conference Centre.
Little structural work is planned but new wall and floor coverings, improved acoustic tiles and many more esthetic aspects will be enhanced.
Some minor work will also be done at the adjacent theatre — attention to wall and floor coverings — but it will still be in use, with a planned dinner theatre with the Laughing Stock Theatre Society, the same group that brought Kamloops Cinderella two years ago at the theatre and Puss N Boots last Christmas at Sagebrush Theatre.
Sutton said he’s anticipating a September or October relaunch for the ballroom and is looking at events that will help showcase it to the community and to organizations looking at Kamloops as a site to hose their events.
Prestons — the restaurant that was originally known as Ora — will also have work done on it although Sutton said he’s hoping that does not require a shutdown.
The project is expected to begin in late March or early April and take about two weeks.
The work is part of an overall renovation to the Rogers Way 200-room hotel complex that saw the south tower of rooms completed last year and work about to finish on the north tower.
When it is all done, about $8 million in renovations will have been completed, Sutton said.
And, while the look may change in the rebranding, one thing remains the same — the chef in the kitchen.
Award-winning chef Romeo Oloresisimo remains in charge of the menu, which has been changed to reflect the Coast’s Preston-chain theme.
“And, when you have a chef like Romeo, only good things can come from that,” Sutton said.
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