Photo: File photo

The 2022 Downtown Kelowna Winter Street Market will have more vendors than ever before.

The Downtown Kelowna Winter Street Market is expanding.

First launched in 2018, it was cancelled in 2020 and scaled-back in 2021, but this year’s market will feature more than 50 vendors.

“It’s on Water Street. We’re set up between the roundabouts but we’re going to have a bigger footprint this year because we have that many more artisan vendors coming to the market,” says Mark Burley, executive director of the Downtown Kelowna Association.

“We also have this year, for a minimum $5 donation, you can buy a Winter Street Market hot chocolate mug with all the proceeds going to help out the food bank. And as we know, for every dollar you raise for the food bank, they have a buying power of $3.”

The Winter Street Market runs Saturday, Dec. 3, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and coincides with the 32nd downtown holiday light up.

The timing of the light up of the Christmas tree will be a bit different this year.

“We decided that we wanted to light the tree while the market is still open. Traditionally we would do it at 6 p.m. when the market closes. We’re doing it at 4:45 p.m. this Saturday. Then we’ve got a whole hour for people to enjoy the market as well as hopefully families will disperse throughout downtown Kelowna and take advantage of the many restaurants and businesses we have that are open on Saturday,” Burley explains.

There will be some road closures and parking restrictions in place Saturday.

Water Street, between Queensway and Doyle Avenue, will be closed to vehicle traffic from 5:30 a.m.-8:30 p.m. The roundabouts at Queensway and Doyle will remain open. The first bay of the City Hall parking lot, which is directly adjacent to Water Street, will be blocked off for the duration of the Winter Street Market.

Also launching Saturday, free weekend on-street parking downtown and in the three City of Kelowna parkades(Chapman, Memorial and Library). However, time limits remain in place. Tickets will be issued for going over the allotted time.

You can visit kelowna.ca/parking to find up-to-date parking space availability for the three parkades.