Commercial businesses looking to build in downtown Kamloops or on the North Shore could soon be able to get a tax break.

Council will vote next month whether to allow a 10-year tax exemption for new commercial properties in those city cores.

Director of development services Marvin Kwiatkowski says older storefronts that are vacant don’t meet the criteria for many companies.

“There are old buildings, but what we’ve heard from many developers over the past few years is that to attract new, larger companies, they’re looking for a modern building. They’re not looking for a low ceiling, small windows, 1970s, 1960s vintage, they’re not interested.”

Kwiatkowski says there’s a demand for newer buildings built to a high standard.

“Why now? We’ve had interest around the council table, around the development community. There is a lot of interest, and the other thing is there’s been very little to no development in the downtown. That is a concern, and that is what we’re trying to promote.”

City staff say the Sandman Signature Hotel across from Riverside Park was built in 2011 after the city decided to include hotels in its existing 10-year tax exemption bylaw.

Councillor Mike O’Reilly says that property will start paying about $350,000 in property taxes when the 10-year exemption is over. “Which is almost the three snow plow guys we hired this year, which we debated, for $400,00 dollars,” O’Reilly says by comparison. “And (the Sandman) has over 150 staff, jobs in the downtown core… We’re not just saying hotels or high-tech or residential. We want our core areas, the downtown and the North Shore, to develop.”

Staff say the Kamloops Central Business Improvement Association and the North Shore BIA have both advocated to include purpose-built commercial buildings in the exemption bylaw.

The last new purpose-built commercial building built in downtown Kamloops was the Interior Savings and Fulton LLP building, at 350 Lansdowne St., back in 2007.