Developer proposes 80-room hotel for Oliver
Fairview Road site currently home to Centennial RV Park
A hotel may finally get built in Oliver.
The surprise announcement came Monday near the conclusion of council’s 45-minute public meeting.
Mundi Hotel Enterprise has proposed a four-storey, 80-room hotel and eatery to be located on two acres of publicly owned land currently home to the Centennial RV Park at 256 Fairview Rd.
“We have a couple of smaller motels and lots of B&Bs, but a hotel is a missing link here,” Mayor Ron Hovanes said.
“We have many festivals, events, food, wine and attractions . . . but we lose a lot, such as small weddings, to neighbouring communities like Osoyoos and Penticton.”
The municipality has owned the land under the RV park for the past 40 years and leased it to the operator. If the hotel goes ahead, the town would have to sell the two-acre parcel, although a referendum will not be required because of the present zoning.
The Mundi group owns the Coast Hotel and Convention Centre in Kamloops, where it recently invested $9 million, as well as hotels in Langley and Lethbridge, Alta.
“It’s quite exciting. They are real developers, real people and with a real interest,” the mayor said.
Hovanes doubts the proposal will create public outrage similar to that surrounding Skaha Lake Park in Penticton.
Centennial “has never been a park for the community where you go to play, sunning and play games. I don’t think it’s quite the same as Skaha Lake Park,” Hovanes said.
“We subdivided the south-end off, there’s a community centre on one side, a small park on one corner and a water park on the other. All four corners will have parkland. There’s a proposed two-acre hotel site and another acre that could be developed. We have Lions Park to the north.”
The next step is to advertise in two upcoming editions of The Oliver Chronicle.
The largest motel in Oliver is the Cactus Tree Inn with about 30 rooms.
There has been talk of attracting a chain hotel to Oliver for years. A feasibility study was conducted in 2012 and a hotel was put out to a request for proposal, resulting in an underwhelming response.
A similar request was put out in January, which resulted in the opposite response.
“I think a lot of it has to do with the economy,” Hovanes said of the sudden shift in interest.
If all goes according to plan, the hotel could be up and running within 12 months. Final approval from council is still a month away.