By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle
The Osoyoos Museum Society has been awarded a grant of $310,530 by the federal government which will enable it to fully complete the ongoing renovations to the Osoyoos & District Museum and Archives.
The funding, provided through the Pacific Economic Development Agency of Canada (PacifiCan), is part of a federal government initiative that saw $5.5 million in grant money for 23 projects to “revitalize public space and enhance tourism experiences” in Thompson Okanagan communities.
The money will enable the museum to complete the lower level renovation and construct the outdoor Urban Heritage Park.
“We were pretty excited when we heard the news,” said Kara Burton, executive director of the Osoyoos Museum and Archives, adding that there “might have been champagne!”
“It’s the final piece of the funding puzzle. We’ve been so fortunate with the community with our donors, sponsors, and businesses,” she said, noting that when all is said and done this will represent nearly a $3 million project.
It’s been a long wait, nearly one and a half years since the application was first submitted back in July 2021.
“We knew that we weren’t cut from consideration because they kept coming back to us to clarify, get a little bit more information on this and that, so we’ve been back and forth providing a little more information on the project and what not for quite a few months now,” she said.
And once they found out some weeks ago, they had to keep their lips sealed until the official announcement was made.
Burton said work on the building has been ramped up due to the tight timeline of having to complete the work by the federal government’s year-end of March 31, 2023. “It’s a tight timeline, but with Larry [Stone] onboard he is so on top of everything as far as the project is concerned, we’re not worried.”
Burton said this week they’ve got tradespeople working on the additional heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system which is a dedicated system to control the temperature and humidity for the storage and archives room.
This is in addition to the overall building’s HVAC, both of which are required to bring in fragile artifacts and travelling exhibits from larger museums like the Royal BC Museum, or their current water exhibit from the Kelowna Heritage Museum.
“We wouldn’t have been able to accommodate those in the old building,” Burton said, adding that the climate control was “pretty sketchy” in that facility.
Other ongoing work in the lower level consists of washrooms and finishing things like doors and trim. A multipurpose room will also be completed which will be used for teaching, presentations and their planned education program.
Also to be completed is a meeting room which the Osoyoos Rotary Club has earlier committed to fund a total of $30,000 towards, spread over five years. When complete the service club will hold its weekly meetings there.
The other major component to be completed – and one that had been awaiting funding before moving forward – is the Urban Heritage Park in the vacant lot next to the museum building.
“We’re just working with landscape architecture right now and we’ve got drawings done already and we’re meeting with him tomorrow to finalize things,” Burton said on Dec. 12.
The garden will feature displays and information on agricultural and irrigation history and will also function as a space for summer evening events.
A section of the park will be open to Main Street with benches, and the rest will be fenced and gated because of the displays.
The museum has already hosted a handful of events for other community groups and Burton said the plan is to be available as a venue for events in order to generate some extra income.
“We will be doing quite a few of our own events, but we are hoping that once we get everything sorted and we get settled that we will be an option as a venue but it’s certainly not our priority to be a venue.”
“Our priority is being a museum and if we can offset some of our expenses and be available for some other groups, we’ll try to do that,” she said.
While everything will “more or less” be wrapped up by the end of March, the plan is to have everything done before summer begins so that “we will be able to finally have our official grand opening!”
Planning for the opening will begin in the new year, Burton said, suggesting coyly that there may indeed be some bubbly this time around.
