Right in the heart of B.C. wine country, a new 10,000 sq. foot wine storage facility has just opened at Senkulmen Business Park, near Oliver.
When the business park held its official opening late last year, the climate controlled storage facility was already under construction. Opening, as scheduled, in mid-2012, the building is the show piece of the park, and Sara Kenyon hopes that will generate even more business.
“It’s the first development down in the park. We want to spur further development and saw a need for storage,” said Kenyon, adding that the project is a partnership between the Osoyoos Indian Band and the Kenyon group of companies. “We have a long standing relationship with the Osoyoos Indian Band, we’ve done a lot of work with them.”
“It’s good to have our first tenant in, hopefully we will be adding more soon,” said the OIB’s Chief Clarence Louie, who sees a lot of opportunity for the wine storage facility. “There are a lot of wineries in the South Okanagan. For high-end wine, you need high end storage.”
Senkulmen, a name meaning a place to work and create, is a major venture for the OIB, which already has a first-rate reputation for it’s successful business and economic developments. The park, situated just outside Oliver, is intended to diversify the local economy by attracting more commerce, light industrial and institutional businesses to the area. It is currently in the first pass of its 10-year development plan and will eventually accommodate up to 40 business tenants and create upwards of 1,000 new manufacturing and supporting jobs in the region, based on an economic analysis prepared for the project.
Though the renters will be able to store anything from supplies on up in the facility, Kenyon expects that it will be mostly used for finished product as the building incorporates a state of the art geothermal heating and cooling system.
“That’s something that sets us part from the competition,” said Kenyon, continuing to list the other features of the facility, including 24-7 access for winery tenants as well as a high tech, hydraulically levelled loading ramp that can be adjusted for use by any size of truck.