The Kootenay Climbing Association has made progress towards making Cube 2.0 a reality since it was originally presented to council last year, but there are still hurdles they need to overcome before it will be ready to break ground in 2025.
The association applied for expansion to council after it was deemed the current facility, located at Selkirk College’s Tenth Street Campus, is no longer adequate to support the rising demand for this particular type of facility.
Executive director Brian Hansen says they have fostered enough support through a petition and are now asking council for more support to meet the deadline of 2025 to break ground.
“We have a petition we presented last year which has almost 2,000 signatures from the surrounding area,” he says. “We also had 410 responses to a survey we put out to the community which showed overwhelming support.”
KCA presented to council some of the hurdles they have already overcome, but indicated there are still more to faceto stay on the timeline.
Hansen says having blueprints and funding are the next steps they need to consider.
“We need to make sure we follow cost estimates once the schematic is complete,” he says. “Then we can move into funding which will cover capital fundraising, final design, and we are looking to raise additional money closer to 2025.”
According to Hansen capital funding would be $1 million, design funding would be $300,000, and they would look at raising an additional $5 million closer to construction in the spring of 2025.
Cube 2.0 is looking at obtaining $4 million through federal and provincial grants, $50,000 from corporate sponsorships, $500,000 from community fundraising, and an asset sale which would bring in $250,000. They are also considering a loan of $800,000.
The total cost of the facility is estimated at $5.6 million.
According to the presentation, the existing climbing facility has seen an increase of 12,000 since 2014, and sees about 80 to130 people a day come through its doors.
