Demolition day: one of Kelowna’s first movie theatres razed to the ground

Monday was demolition day for a Kelowna real estate development company.

Three large excavators from T-Rex Excavating were hard at work on Victor Project’s Water Street property at the northeast corner of Lawrence avenue.

One excavator punched holes through the exterior walls of the old building, while another caved in the building’s roof.

The one machine’s metal bucket teeth and hydraulic horsepower made easy work of the cinder block walls.

While the other quickly ripped through the steel girders and wooden framing that formed the roof’s structure before leaving behind nothing but a pile of rubble in its wake.

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The huge pile of demolition day debris noteworthy because what now looks like a war zone was actually one of Kelowna’s first movie theatres.

“The building was originally Mervyn Motors back in the day, then converted to a movie theatre in the mid-’70s,” said Rick Miller of Victor Projects Ltd.

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The building located at 1551 Water St. was home to the Uptown Cinema Centre, Kelowna’s first two-screen movie theatre.

But the Uptown’s silver screens went dark in 2000, shortly after the larger and newer Grand 10 Cinemas opened its doors.

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The building then served for a short time as the Oasis of Love Miracle Centre but now has been demolished to make way for “temporary parking for downtown Kelowna, and then once the building is down, we will start working on a plan for redevelopment,” Miller said.

As for what exactly that redevelopment plan might look like?

“Hard to say at this point but there’s a lot of options open to us,” Miller said.

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Lots of options because the property is currently zoned C-7, which is one of Kelowna’s most wide-ranging usage zonings.

However, one of the most likely options might be a residential apartment building, perhaps one like “Ella”, currently under construction two blocks away on Lawrence.

By 4 p.m. Monday, the entire building was razed to the group and will hopefully be cleaned up entirely by the end of the week.

Making way for about 40 public parking stalls in an Impark style parkade.

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All part of the ever-changing face of downtown Kelowna.