
Visitors to Merritt and area locals have raised concerns about a novel development being built just outside the city and the use of the old site it will sit on.
Gateway 286 is a new development being worked on by a multitude of developers and the five First Nations bands who own the land under the company Spayum Holdings LLP. They aim to create a modern commercial centre harbouring both small businesses and well-known brands at the junction of Highway 5 and Highway 97C.
Construction is set to begin on March 1.
With the opening of the project nearing, some business owners in Merritt remain skeptical of it as they believe it could drive away business from Merritt's downtown.
Dana Egan, owner of the Grand Pub and Grill and Merritt city councillor, is one of these wary business owners.
"If they put restaurants and gasoline and little shops and hotels and things up there, what do they (tourists) gotta come downtown for?” she said. "It's gonna kill all the little mom and pop shops downtown.”
She said she's seen it with the big box brands like Walmart and Canadian Tire setting up their shops north of the city in the Bench area. With those stores there, Egan said she and the city have to do a lot more advertising to get people into the city.
As Gateway 286 will be put on top of Merritt's old visitor centre, Egan speculated what will happen to downtown businesses and used the time when the visitor centre was open as an example.
"As soon as that visitor centre closed, the very next day we were busy downtown. So what do you think is going to happen when they have all those other businesses up there?”
Tourist statistics from Merritt's new visitor centre, the Baillie House, show an increase in visitors to the city after the old centre closed at the beginning of 2018.
That year there was a 21 per cent increase in visitors compared to 2017. A year later they reported 30,780 visitors, a nearly seven per cent increase from 2018's 28,801 visitors.
As businesses wait to see what will happen to the downtown after the development is completed, there are those working on the project and in the city who want to quell any worries.
One of those people is the CEO of Troika Developments, who is one of the partners on this project, Renee Merrifield. She calls Gateway 286 "a gem of a project."
"From an economic standpoint, it is a huge shot in the arm for the city of Merritt and all of the businesses and residences alike,” she said.
The city is actively working together with the Province and the developers on this project. In 2023, Merritt took out a loan worth over $7.5 million to help cover the development's costs. They can expect to get the money back through years of parcel taxes put on Gateway 286, according to City Coun. Adam Etchart.
Merrifield says the Merritt businesses shouldn't have to worry about the development taking shoppers away from them, as they are hoping the project will attract people who wouldn't otherwise stop in Merritt.
"We hope to capture the ones that are flowing through Merritt and stopping in Hope. We hope to really ignite a lot of the excitement around what Merritt has to offer already and just augment it even further. One of the little known facts about the Coquihalla agreement was that there is no commercial allowed in between the different cities. So this is an opportunity to really allow those travelers to find that oasis,” she said.
Merrifield pointed to another one of Troika's developments near Prince George as an example of how commercial developments can bring in more people.
"I can definitely say that in the surrounding area (of the development), it's definitely experienced a tremendous amount of economic growth,” she said.
Etchart shares the sentiment that the development won't harm local businesses. He likened the situation to a previous one when new gas stations opened in town but the older ones downtown still got business.
"Whether you're born in Canada, if you're First Nations, if you're from abroad, you have to be thinking about what's good for the community. And I think (Gateway 286) is just good for the community,” he said. "I just think there's room for everybody.”
Susan Roline, a board member in Spayum Holdings LLP, and former Mayor of the City of Merritt, said the impact on the downtown should be "negligible”, since the downtown offers a different experience compared to Gateway 286.
She also said Gateway 286 will have lots of opportunities to educate travellers about Merritt through storyboards or the employees themselves.
Economically, it is expected that the new development will provide jobs to people in Merritt as well as members of the five First Nations involved in the project. Merrifield said there will be direct employment opportunities open to members of the five bands and that they are trying to give projects to trades workers in those communities.
"That would be the ultimate goal, right? Is that we are a part of their story of sustainability,” Merrifield said, regarding building the economies of the five bands.
Roline said the First Nations will also be receiving part of the profits from each business plus royalties from gas sales. The money received by the development will be reinvested into other projects like the Grasslands site, also owned by Spayum Holdings LLP.

Other concerns about the project include tourists curious about the abandoned rest stop, and the progress on the development.
Recently, a YouTube video about the topic posted by former Global News director Anita Krishna was released. In the video, she was driving past Merritt and discovered the abandoned building. She remarked on the beauty of its exterior before sparking a discussion on whether or not the property has been used efficiently.
A few days after, Krishna released a follow-up video where she found out about the new development (Gateway-286), but she still had concerns.
"Is that a good reason to just sit there in the meantime and let that building go to waste?” she said in the video. "This is the point I'm making about government waste. Can you not do something in the meantime so that a little business could be in there selling sandwiches, selling coffee?”
People still occasionally stop at the rest spot according to Coun. Egan, who said she hears about travellers getting out of their cars there.
Speaking on why the building has been abandoned, Roline said it is because the centre was outdated and didn't meet codes set by the Province. Specifically, permits were not issued by Interior Health Services to expand the building's septic system, which she said led to overflows of waste.
"Because of that, we couldn't get another permit even if we had wanted to open a business there,” she said.
Now, it seems the building will not be there much longer with looming construction planned for March.
However, some in Merritt want to see the old building restored somehow, Etchart being one of them.
Currently, plans are in place to do that. Merrifield said they are talking with NVIT about the possibility of turning the building into what she calls an elder's lodge. The building would be dismantled and put up again on NVIT property with modern renovations.
She said that another way to get use of the building would be to re-use the logs from the building on the site.
"If it was a building that was going to be demolished, I think that it would already be demolished. We would have done that when we did the earthworks. But because it’s a building that we actually want to see have a second life, we’re being very sensitive and very careful with how we treat it and with how we actually get it to its final place,” she said.
The construction of the development has been met with a few delays, but for a project of its size, it's "on track.”
Merrifield cites the floods and COVID as two of the major setbacks the project faced. During the former, many First Nations bands lost their offices or caused displacement amongst them. During those years Merrifield said it was 'almost impossible” for them to properly discuss the project.
As of now, Gateway 286 is scheduled to open in the second quarter of 2026.