The City of Kamloops is working with Thompson Rivers University to pick a location for the new Summit Drive pedestrian overpass.

Councillor Margot Middleton asked staff for an update during a recent Build Kamloops Select Committee meeting, noting the city allocated $5-million from the province’s Growing Communities Fund towards that project in April of last year.

“This was pretty much a shovel ready project that could get out the door fairly quickly,” Middleton said. “Not seeing too much happening there.”

“I don’t know if you can speak to where we are at on that, but is it possible to reallocate those funds that we’ve already assigned, pull them back and assign them elsewhere? Perhaps for something like this [paying for detailed design work on a new Kamloops Centre for the Arts]?”

CAO David Trawin says there was a bit of discrepancy over what location would work best for the overpass, which has been in the works for over a decade.

“We’re going to have report coming to council within the next month on all the capital projects we did last year, and where we’re at, as well as that project and the skating rink in Riverside Park,” Trawin said.

Trawin says that money – and the $5.4-million the city allocated towards the new skating rink – has not yet been spent.

“At this time that $5-million is still sitting in an account,” Trawin said.

Another $1-million from the Growing Communities Fund was earmarked for planning work on projects that were identified in the Recreation Master Plan, with another approximately $4.3-million unallocated at this time.

The estimated $10-million cost to build the Summit Drive overpass will be split equally between the City of Kamloops and TRU.

That is after an application for $6-million in grant funding made in 2022 was denied by the Federal Government.