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Penticton  

SOEC Partner Named

And the proposed partner is...

The City of Penticton announced its proposed private sector partner for building the South Okanagan Events Centre (SOEC) at an open meeting Thursday night.

Giffel's Partnership Solutions Inc. won out over Global Entertainment Corp. and is now being considered by council for the 56 million dollar project.

In January the city received about five applications from companies to build the SOEC. The applications were then shortlisted to Global and Giffel, who submitted more detailed proposals in April for the city's review team to consider.

Review team member Jonathan Huggett says Giffel's proposal received substantially higher evaluation marks then Global's.

β€œIt was a clear winner, it was an unanimous decision,” says Huggett.

The two submissions were evaluated out of 100 points. 60 points were possible for their financial evaluation of the project and 40 were possible for their technical evaluation, says Huggett.

Although only about 100 members of the public showed up for the announcement, Councilor Dan Ashton says he is pleased with the public's interest in the matter.

β€œI'm glad to see so many people came out for this, I just hope more people get involved and informed in the process because this is a community project,” says Ashton.

The names of the people on the Mayor's independent review team were also made public during the meeting.

The review team consisted of former provincial cabinet minister Jim Hewitt, Cantex-Okanagan Construction Ltd. owner John Pankiw, former owner of Princeton Light and Power Co. John Hall, former B.C. Parks administrator Dennis O'Gorman and former federal cabinet minister Tom Siddon.

The SOEC is expected to be completed in the fall of 2008.


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