Okanagan Falls has suffered a gradual economic decline, with few shops and restaurants populating the downtown area.
However, that could be changing soon as last year, a full-service grocery store, Belich’s AG Foods, opened in town after several months without one.
And more recently, the historic Ok Falls Hotel was purchased with plans to reopen.
“The hotel was purchased in November of 2022. It was purchased by Gary and Victoria Peters, which are my parents, and they were motivated ultimately by giving back to the community,” said Avery Family Farms Quality Assurance manager Rachelle Peters.
“It was clear that there was really a hole in the community since it’s been missing and they were happy to contribute.”
The Avery Group is a company with local roots in the South Okanagan and has invested in three major projects in the area, including the hotel, an industrial park and vertical farm.
Currently the group is using the hotel as temporary housing for their out-of-town workers.
“We found that the housing market here, there’s just not enough inventory to house our employees and consultants that are coming to help us set up the farm and the business park,” said Peters.
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“We do hope that with the revitalization of the community, that there will be more of a housing inventory available and then we’ll be able to open up the hotel to the public.”
Avery Group also owns the old Weyerhaeuser mill site, which has since been rezoned into a light industrial park after being purchased in 2020.
“Avery Business Park is a large 114 acres business park that will provide 2-million in buildable square-feet and up to 2,000 jobs,” said Peters in an email to Global News.
“We expect strategy lots to be available for sale later this fall. 20 properties in all, each at least a hectare in size, and all the infrastructure to support them, spread over approximately 90 acres.”
Grading work is underway at the park with hopes to have preparation finished by May or June of this year.
“We would love to breathe a little bit of life back into the community,” said Peters.
“With the business park and up to 2,000 jobs, there should be an economic trickle-down effect so we should be able to see more of a housing supply and more services for the community here.”
The business park is also home to the group’s third major project, Avery Family Farms, a vertical farming building.
The family says the decision to introduce vertical farms into the area was largely driven by seeing empty grocery store shelves during the pandemic, climate change and highway closures which disrupted the supply chain.
“It’s really just starting to come into North America probably the last five years,” said Avery Family Farms general manager Mark Sundin.
“That is because of climate change affecting where we’re getting our crops today. In California, for example, they’re having droughts.”
The approximately 50,000-square-foot building is a completely controlled environment built to replicate Mother Nature.
The building was designed for sustainability and to use less electricity for heating and cooling.
“I’ve been in Japan back and forth since the early ’90s and lived there for quite a while. The vertical farms have been in Japan for probably since the 1970s, doing indoor agriculture with artificial light, and it’s really just starting to come into North America probably the last five years,” said Sundin.
“The fact that we’re using like 95 per cent less water than you would see in field-grown crops, no pesticides, so you don’t have to wash your organics.”
Aside from strong roots in the area, Avery Group says the Ok Falls property best suited the needs of the farm.
“From a vertical farm standpoint, it’s the distribution network as long as you’re within that four hour-to- five hour zone where you’re producing your crops, it creates a more sustainable product,” said Sundin.
“It’s not coming three or 4,000 kilometers away from say, California. You’re getting it as close as you can here. For example, Kelowna, we’re an hour away for Kelowna, you’ve got Kamloops nearby, you’ve got the Greater Vancouver area — we’re in a good proximate proximity for distribution.”
Although construction has been delayed due to supply chain issues, the group hopes to have seeds in the ground by early summer.
Production levels, however, will vary depending on the crops.
“In the past, others, other vertical farms or similar to vertical farm operations have started and failed — they have created a scenario where the retailers are a little bit cautious on selecting vertical farms,” added Sundin.
“Our goal is to be able to produce high-quality produce, highly-nutritional produce that the retailers can depend on for deliveries 365 days a year, both in quantity and of deliverables and also the quality and the size of the product will be consistent.”
Sundin went on to say that it has been a group effort to get the project off the ground.
“Today is International Women’s Day and I wanted to send a thank you to all of the women in our group for Avery farms, some of our consultants who have put in so much time and effort and a really sincere job in getting us to where we’re at today.”
There is no timeline as to when the hotel, business park and farm will be fully completed but Avery Group hopes the businesses attract more people to Okanagan Falls.
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