EDITORIAL – Mayor’s proposal to relocate PAC is an idea that came too late

An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.

WITH A GROUNDBREAKING ceremony for the performing arts centre set for Wednesday afternoon (Nov. 25, 2025) at the site of the former Kamloops Daily News on Seymour Street, there’s suddenly a proposal to build it somewhere else.

The idea comes from Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson, who says it would be better located on River Street. For one thing, he believes the PAC could be built more cheaply there than on Seymour Street, where cost estimates keep ballooning.

The expected bill there has now hit $211 million. Somehow, the folks at City Hall and their consultants, whose job it is to estimate these things, thought the Daily News land was flatter than it turned out to be. And, digging out the remnants of the newspaper’s underground press room is apparently going to cost more, too.

You’d have to explain to me why such basic things couldn’t have been calculated into the initial estimates as it’s a bit of a mystery. But it is what it is.

Hamer-Jackson thinks the PAC as envisioned on Seymour Street is getting too expensive, and likes the idea of the amenity being located riverside. It’s true that Seymour Street never was the best location, its main problem being that the PAC will be shoehorned into a tight downtown spot with insufficient onsite parking.

The vision of a PAC on the Henry Grube property beside the north end of Overlanders Bridge never took off despite the fact it has plenty of room and would have provided the opportunity to create a spectacular piece of architecture jutting out towards the river, in the fashion of the Sydney opera house on Sydney Harbour.

The River Street location at the site of the old Yacht Club would also be a pretty cool spot, with parking and access far superior to Seymour Street. It’s all an unproven vision in the mayor’s mind right now, with plenty of questions about how it could actually be configured, the challenges presented by the fact it sits at the base of a flood-protection berm, and whether or not the Seymour Street design could be adapted or would have to be scrapped. That, of course, would affect the ultimate cost.

I’m guessing the funds from the loan authorization bylaw could be applied to the alternative site but what about the money that’s already been spent? And what would a one- or two-year delay add to the eventual price tag?

At any rate, it’s an idea that comes too late. Nobody on council other than the mayor will support putting the brakes on Seymour Street. Wednesday’s ceremony will go ahead at 2:30 p.m. as planned, and so will construction of the PAC.

A performing arts centre is long overdue in Kamloops and, while there were better locations than Seymour Street, it will be a wonderful addition to the city. Time to go forward, not backward.

Mel Rothenburger is a former regular contributor to CFJC-TV and CBC radio, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and a Webster Foundation Commentator of the Year finalist. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor.  He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.