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Kamloops  

New industrial park proposed for former Iron Mask mine site

Industrial park proposed

Sydney Chisholm

The owners of a former mine site in southwest Kamloops are looking to turn the 190-acre parcel of land into a light industrial subdivision.

Comet Industries has applied to city hall to rezone the property, located between Sugarloaf Road and Bowers Place. The company said it expects the application to go to a public hearing sometime next year.

Mike O’Reilly, president and CEO of Comet Industries, said the Tournament Capital is in desperate need of a new light industrial park.

“We've been significantly short of industrial land in Kamloops for over 10 years,” O’Reilly, who also sits on city council, told Castanet Kamloops.

“And that supply is getting smaller and smaller to the point we almost have nothing left in Kamloops — and the demand is only getting stronger.”

According to O’Reilly, the company expects to have about 150 sellable acres once roads and grades are factored in. He said he hopes to have lots ready for construction by the fall of 2024.

“You're going to see distribution and warehousing — those types of light industry businesses will relocate here, open here,” O’Reilly said.

In addition to adding opportunities for local businesses to expand and attracting new ones, O’Reilly says the park will help lower taxes for Kamloops home owners if it goes ahead.

“The tax base for the City of Kamloops will increase and that will help offset some of the residential taxes that are having to be made up for industry and businesses not coming to Kamloops because we don't have anywhere for them to locate,” O’Reilly said.

Comet industries has owned the former mine site for almost 50 years, according to O’Reilly. Much of the property is still contaminated — specifically an old tailings pound that was used in the mining process.

"The mining had been going on for almost 100 years, so this isn't something that just came in, it has been scraped over and over and over again — polluted,” he said.

“And now we're coming in, and we are going to be cleaning up the site and turning it into something usable, instead of sitting here as a dirty site for another 50 years.”

The proposed project is currently sandwiched between two other industrial park developments, O’Reilly said. If approved, it will be the first new light industrial park in 25 years.



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