New school for downtown Kelowna on wish list
KELOWNA – A new elementary school site in downtown Kelowna has leaped to the top of a district wish list, reflecting both surging student enrolment overall and a significant demographic change that’s underway in the city’s central core.
Trustees will be asked Wednesday to approve an updated five-year capital plan that puts the purchase of a three hectare downtown school site as one of its top priorities.
“It’s where we’re really seeing a lot of population growth, particularly with young people already coming into downtown Kelowna, and where we expect a lot more young families to be in the future, “Central Okanagan Public Schools superintendent Kevin Kaardal said in an interview Monday.
Asked when the need for a downtown elementary school will become critical, Kaardal said: “As soon as possible is always our answer to that question. I needed some school sites yesterday. I needed new schools to open yesterday.”
Identifying and acquiring a school site in the downtown Kelowna area is the No. 1 priority for the site acquisition program, reads part of a report to trustees from Rob Drew, the district’s director of operations. District officials have already explained to Ministry of Education staff the need for a new elementary school in downtown Kelowna, Drew says.
Greater Kelowna, which encompasses the entire Central Okanagan, is Canada’s fastest-growing urban region, with the population rising from 194,000 222,000 between 2016 and 2021, StatsCan says.
That overall regional growth rate of 14 per cent over the same period was even faster in Kelowna’s downtown core, StatsCan says. The population of the central city rose from 13,415 to 16,605, with the 24 percent increase making Kelowna’s downtown the third-fastest growing in Canada, after Montreal and Halifax.
Just over one-third of downtown Kelowna’s residents are millennials, people born between 1981 and 1996. Now between the ages of 27 and 43, millennials are either just entering their child-bearing years or well into them, a demographic fact which puts pressure on school systems.
Kelowna’s downtown is now almost as young in demographic terms as Vancouver’s, where 36 per cent of central core residents are millennials, according to StatsCan.
“Millennials are a group that’s been really flocking to downtown Kelowna,” top city planner Ryan Smith said in a 2022 interview after the StatsCan data from 2021 census was released. “They want a life that’s less car dependant, that’s closer to work, and where they can also easily walk to attractions like beaches, restaurants, and nightlife.”
“We had so many years of not being able to get more people living downtown,” Smith said at the time. “Now all of a sudden, everybody wants to be downtown at the same time.”
Obtaining land for a new elementary school in downtown Kelowna was listed as the district’s second highest priority under last year’s site acquisition plan. Now in the top spot, such a proposal didn’t even feature on past versions of plans in recent years.
Kelowna’s biggest high school, Kelowna Secondary, was located for many decades near downtown, just south of Harvey Avenue, until it was demolished and a new KSS opened in 2002 further south near Okanagan College. Ironically, the old KSS property is now the site of the Central Green housing development, where hundreds of new homes are helping fuel downtown’s population increase and giving rise to a need for a new school.
Elsewhere in downtown, the construction of high-rises, mid-rises, and four-plexes account for most of the population increase. The district had a property for many years in the heart of downtown, at 580 Doyle Ave. But it was a small site of less than four-tenths of an acre without a playing field, and was used mainly for administrative purposes and education of high school kids that no longer attended other schools.
The district sold the property in December 2022 to UBC Properties Trust for $5.3 million. The university is building a 43-storey vertical campus on the adjacent property, at 550 Doyle Ave.
That building, which will be the tallest in the city and include hundreds of residential suites, will also increase demand for an elementary school downtown. As well, the redevelopment of the massive old Tolko sawmill site in the downtown north end is currently projected to include 3,500 new homes over a 50 acre waterfront site.
While getting a site for a future downtown school is important, the district’s top construction project is a new middle and/or secondary school built in the area around UBC Okanagan. That’s a new top construction priority, and reflects the considerable new residential development around the university campus, both in Kelowna and Lake Country.
Funds for long-sought improvements at Rutland Middle School remain at the top of the school addition program, while replacement of the aging Glenmore Elementary School is also near the top of the building list.
The top three new school projects are the new middle/secondary school in the university area, a new elementary/middle school in the Smith Creek area of West Kelowna, and a new elementary/ middle school in the Wilden neighborhood of Kelowna.
Priority school additions, after Rutland Middle, are at Chief Tomat in West Kelowna, Webber Road in West Kelowna, and Bankhead Elementary in Kelowna.
After downtown Kelowna, top site acquisitions are in Lake Country for a new elementary, and in the newly-developing area of Goats Peak in West Kelowna.
As well, Glenmore Elementary and Raymer Elementary, both in Kelowna, are in need of complete replacement, district officials say. In 2015, enrolment in Kelowna-area public schools was at 21,194. It has now topped 25,500.