KELOWNA – An important milestone for the Okanagan’s high tech industry happened Friday as work on Kelowna’s Innovation Centre officially began.
The construction at the corner of Doyle and Ellis Street next to the library got underway after a ceremonial ground breaking that included BC’s Premier Christy Clark.
“There are two major tech centres in the province. One in Vancouver and one in Victoria and both are thriving. Kelowna is the third and our intention is to grow this as a tech hub,” says Clark.
The $30,000,000 building will be a public-private venture.
It will be home to high-tech companies, both established and ones just starting out.
Lane Merrifield, who co-founded Club Penguin, is one of the private investors.
“The tech industry has been growing in Kelowna for some time and hardly anyone even knows about it, and so this building serves as a beacon,” says Merrifield.
The building will be constructed to imitate high tech success giants like Apple and Google, with open spaces for plenty of collaboration.
“It will be featured with an atrium that runs through it. It will have actual visibility to every floor within the atrium, so you can imagine companies an different floors working and engaging and seeing other people working and collaborating together, ‘ says Merrifield.
Work on the facility has barely started and it’s already quickly filling up with interested companies.
“We are running between 85 and 90 percent occupancy,” says Merrifield. “It tells me the high tech scene in Kelowna is already alive and well and all this will do is springboard it to next level.”
The city’s Mayor says the project will create jobs and attract a younger demographic to a city known for losing young people to bigger opportunities in larger cities.
“Kelowna has a youth and young adult deficit in terms of population,” says Walter Gray. “This project, this initiative will attract people that are born and bred in Kelowna to stay in Kelowna but it will also attract people to move to Kelowna.”
The high tech facility will be completed sometime in the middle of 2016.
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