Photo: Madison Reeve

The City of West Kelowna's new city hall will open next week.

In a press release, the City announced the new building, located at 3731 Old Okanagan Hwy will open to the public for administrative services next Tuesday at 8:30 a.m.

“West Kelowna incorporated as a city 17 years ago, and being able to welcome our community into its first purpose-built City Hall is an exciting time and certainly one for the history books,” said Mayor Gord Milsom in the press release.

“Together with the Okanagan Regional Library (ORL), this is truly a civic centre with a beautiful, welcoming building that our community can be proud of. Councils past and present have worked tirelessly to make this a reality and this is the first step in opening the City administrative component of the building.”

The May 21 regular council meeting will be held virtually though, while the audio/visual testing continues.

“We still have a lot to do but Council and staff are excited to welcome the community to our new front counter for the first time on Tuesday,” Milsom said. “We’re also looking forward to holding our first Council meeting in Council Chambers when the system is fully tested and everything is in place.”

The old city hall at Mt. Boucherie Community Centre will close for the final time at 4:30 p.m. today. Operating hours at the new location will continue to be the same, running from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, except statutory holidays.

All front-counter services, like business licensing, planning, building, development and engineering services, bylaw services, property tax and utility payments, municipal fee payments and dog licensing, will be open at the new building come Tuesday.

The new building has been plagued by delays and the cost of construction has increased since shovels first broke ground back in 2021. The City Hall was first expected to be completed by December 2022 at a cost of roughly $18 million, but at last report, the cost had increased to $22.8 million.