Anchored by delays

Photo: Carmen Weld

The Kelowna Yacht Club is coming to fruition on the outside, but on the inside there is a lot of work still to be done before they can open their doors.

“The very original opening date was the end of June. It was very quickly moved to July 21, which was the date we were planning around for the last six or seven months. That was bumped a week to Aug. 1, and now, at this stage, we do not have a new completion date,” explains Kelowna Yacht Club Commodore Mike Terris.

Photo: Carmen Weld

The yacht club does have partial occupancy of the north wing on the first floor which has allowed some of their staff to move to their new offices, but the rest of the building is still a work in progress.

“Our kitchen is not fully operational yet, we still have things moving into it. We have multipurpose rooms on the north wing, second floor, that are still being set up,” explains Terris.

“Most of the work that is still outstanding is in our restaurant and lounge area, primarily the bar which is still under construction. We are also experiencing delays in regards to the spiral staircase which is still very much under construction, they are doing the mill work on that now.”

Another unexpected item for the Yacht Club has been the costs which have now far exceeded the original budget numbers.

Terris says although costs are high it is a very large project with a huge budget and they were prepared.

“The building itself is about $5.5 million but the overall cost of this project is over $9.5 million,” says Terris.

“You are always going to experience some underestimating I think when you start at the very beginning of the planning process. We have hit a few hurdles along the way, but the club has been planning this build for the better part of a decade.

So we are in good shape, from a financial perspective, and quite able to handle these amounts of money over the long term.”

Terris says one of the biggest budget breakers was the very first hurdle they hit, right at the beginning with the construction site itself. It needed to have special work done to ensure it would be safe in the event of an earthquake.

“It was a more expensive process than we had anticipated,” says Terris. “Normally you pour a slab and then put a building on it, but in this case we had to do a fairly sophisticated process of vibro compaction or densification. So that site prep was significantly more than we put in our budget.”

A board meeting will be held Thursday night to discuss a new opening date. Terris says the club will likely have a few weeks of a 'soft opening' in September with a 'grand opening' later this Fall. 

Photo: Carmen Weld