Kamloops Council has unanimously approved the largest residential development permit in the City’s history.

It is for the Kelson Group’s massive 525-unit City Gardens project downtown on Battle Street and Nicola Street between 4th Avenue and 5th Avenue.

“Our team is thrilled to receive the approval of our development permit,” Kelson Group Executive Director and Founder, Ron Fawcett, said in a statement.

“To get to this moment has taken a lot of work for our team, our architects, engineers, the City’s Development Services team, and the community who were generous with their feedback to help us make this the best project we could for downtown. We cannot wait to move forward.”

First announced in Sept. 2020, and revised in March, the new development will comprise of a 24 storey and a 20 storey high rise building as well as four mid-rise buildings, each with six storeys.

According to plans released by the Kelson Group, there will be a mix of one, two, three, and four-bedroom units, some of which will be sold as market strata units with about 200 to be operated as rental units. There will also be some commercial space on the ground floor of the two high-rise towers.

The development will also consist of an underground parking structure with over 800 spaces, including spaces for bicycles, scooters, and electric vehicles. Also, as part of the project is outdoor space with a playground and a dog park along with green space and pedestrian walkways.

“The value of the development is anticipated to be over $200-million,” said Eric Beach, the City’s Planning and Development Supervisor, noting the project supports the goals of KAMPLAN, the Downtown Plan, and the Sustainable Kamloops Plan.

“The City is committed to implementing policies outlined in our guiding plans, so we are pleased to see the development application support many of the long-term objectives for our community.”

Mayor Ken Christian says the project – which is estimated to take about six years to build – will transform the city’s skyline.

“I want to thank the Fawcett family. I think your confidence in the Kamloops economy is tremendous,” he said Tuesday. “We’ve had some good builds lately but they’ve all been primarily public sector builds. This is a private sector development putting their money on the line because they have confidence in the Kamloops economy.”

That statement was echoed by Councillor Bill Sarai.

“I’ve been talking about something like this for years hoping that somebody would come to the table,” he said.

“This is going to bring us in the ball park of people coming from the coast and instead of choosing Kelowna – the other K town – they are going to look at us because we’ve arrived, I think, with this project. With the river views that these towers are going to get, its just going to be unbelievable.”

Added, Councillor Kathy Sincair, “I am thrilled to see that we will be getting quite a bit more housing particularly in the downtown. This is the kind of density we’ve been waiting for and that we need.”

The Kelson Group plans to build, market, and sell the 24-storey residential tower first before moving to other buildings.

“We have a rather large database of interested people and we get inquiries daily asking what is happening with the development, when they will find out pricing details, and put their name down to purchase a suite,” Kelson Group President, Jason Fawcett, said.

“The approval [from the City] means we can start finalizing the paperwork we need to develop our disclosure statement to be ready to start sales. With the approval, we anticipate launching sales sometime in early spring of 2022 and we are hoping to start construction of the 800-car parkade in March.”

Construction on City Gardens is set to begin in spring 2022.

You can read the full report that went to Kamloops City Council on Dec. 14 here.