PORT ALBERNI
Riverbend Store has been purchased by Chris Pouget and Alicia Puusepp. The extensive renovations give a nod to a vintage café and general store. They will off light meals at the café and basic groceries at the general store. They hope to open late spring.
A new BMO Bank of Montreal branch has opened in the Alberni Mall complex. The new bank features an open concept design without service lineups or teller counters, ATMs offering the choice of selecting different denominations of currency for withdrawal, and a drive-thru ATM.
Razzle Dazzle Dental Hygiene Inc. at 4527 Gertrude Street in Port Alberni is accepting new patients. Give them a call at 778-421-1111 to make an appointment.
Shayla Lucier of Leave Her Wild Container Design is in her second year of business with a focus on container design and creating specialty plant related works of art. She brings 13 years of greenhouse experience to their new greenhouse at their property on 4951 Benjamin Road.
Progress on Port Alberni’s low energy housing complex on the corner of Eighth Avenue and Maitland Street continues, with the third of four floors under development. Alberni Low Energy Housing Society, overseers of Maitland Street Village, note there will be 46 units in total. Although not a certified passive house, the complex it is being built to those specifications by Island West Coast Development. Tenants are expected to move in around January 2022.
King Edward Liquor Store located at 3684 3rd. Avenue in Port Alberni has returned to its normal hours of 9am to 11pm.
Dion Hopkins
Royal LePage welcomes its newest realtor, Dion Hopkins, to the Port Alberni team.
The Huu-ay-aht First Nations have received more than $510,000 from the Community Economic Recovery Infrastructure Program to expand its campground at Pachena Bay. The campground project is one of 38 receiving funding this year. The Huu-ay-aht will use the grant to build a new access road to the campground, add 20–40 campsites and new trails within the campground.
Mosaic Forest Management and the Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District (ACRD) have entered into an agreement, in partnership with the province, to work together to prioritize and explore public access opportunities to areas within or adjacent Mosaic-managed private forest lands in the Alberni-Clayoquot region. The pilot project, expected to launch later this year, will allow increased public access on a trial basis to Scout Beach and Lowry Lake. Both of these are provincially-managed recreation sites that are accessed via Mosaic’s privately-owned roads.
The Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District, in partnership with the Tseshaht First Nation, Hupacasath First Nation, and the City of Port Alberni received nearly $82,000 to create an evacuation route plan for the region. The grant, from the Union of BC Municipalities, will enable the partners to identify major and alternate evacuation routes, as well as identifying assembly points and transportation methods of those impacted by an evacuation by foot, boat, bus, and vehicle.
WEST COAST
The ACRD has also approved a pilot greenhouse project put forward by The Coastal Hive, a community food production initiative. Pre-disturbed land adjacent to the proposed agriculture site was also prepped for future development. The ACRD is also holding a five or six-acre piece of land for the West Coast Multiplex Society (WCMS). The WCMS announced that the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations applied for a Canada British Columbia Infrastructure Grant (community, culture and recreation stream) on behalf of Ucluelet, Tofino, Area C, Hesquiaht, Ahousaht, Tla-o-qui-aht, Toquaht and Ucluelet First Nations.
A 25-kilometre multi-use path through the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve should be completed next year. The $51 million path will traverse the Park Reserve’s southern and northern boundaries. The last section of the path, an escarpment overlooking Long Beach, will be called the Wayii, a name chosen by the Elders Working Group. The project is being led by Hazelwood Construction Ltd.
Long-Beach Airport is getting a new $750,000 water main and is earmarked for a future agriculture site. The new plastic water main will replace the 80-year old original infrastructure and supply increased water pressure to users on the site, including a proposed hanger.