New life planned for packinghouse in Naramata
Wine vault will act as a storage facility for local wineries who often don’t have enough room
Along-dormant property in Naramata is bubbling back to life in the heart of the village. Four local partners have announced plans to turn the former BC Tree Fruits packinghouse property into the Naramata Wine Vault.
The 4.6-acre property was purchased by Mik Ball, David Enns, Robert Gritten and Steven Jaeger, who are looking to revitalize the existing cold storage warehouse.
The land was sold for $3.7 million and the new owners take possession of the property in February 2018.
Maintaining the village’s unique charm is a guiding goal for the new owners, said Gritten.
“That’s probably the biggest draw to this for the four of us is we all have a very strong affinity to the village. The charm, the uniqueness of Naramata. We really felt we wanted to make sure that charm and that uniqueness wasn’t affected by somebody coming in and doing something with that property that would change things,” Gritten said.
Their redevelopment plans include electrical work, the installation of climate control technology and a facelift of the business end of the building. It will be designed specifically for storing wine, said Gritten, as many wineries currently store their products in fruit storage facilities.
The wine vault will also feature state-of-the-art security, Gritten added.
“It will be the best in class, which we think will draw pretty decent interest. Once we’ve got the building operational and stabilized we will think about what we might do with the rest of the land, but we really haven’t put a whole lot of thought to it yet,” Gritten said.
The storage business is looking to be operational by sometime in March of 2018, with construction to begin soon.
The sale of the property is welcome news for Karla Kozakevich, who represents Naramata on the board of the Regional District Okanagan Similkameen.
“The people I have spoken with are very excited to see that something is finally going to happen there, and in particular that it was four locals that bought it is really a positive for the community,” Kozakevich said.
The vault will be a big help to the booming wine industry not only in Naramata, but the entirety of the South Okanagan, Kozakevich said.
“My understanding is that many of the wineries don’t have enough storage space. This should provide a much-needed service to our local wineries and that would probably extend beyond Naramata,” Kozakevich said.
Pieces of the property were bought by Naramata Parks and Recreation in the past, and it has been held by BC Tree Fruits since the business packed it in about a decade ago. Aside from that, there hasn’t been much movement on the property until now.
It is going to be a busy time in terms of development for the Naramata village area, as the Naramata Centre is looking to sell off a portion of the approximately 26 acres in its possession, with developers currently putting in bids.
“I’m really excited this has finally happened and we’re finally going to see something take place on that property in 2018,” Kozakevich said.
“We should see some exciting news come out of the Naramata Centre property next year as well.”