By the time the weather warms up, Kamloops’ food trucks could have a place in the city’s core.
Gay Pooler, general manager of the Kamloops Central Business Improvement Association (KCBIA), said her organization is working with the city to find four or five spots where the rolling restaurants can set up shop downtown.
So far, the KCBIA is eyeing parking spaces in front of the Thompson-Nicola Regional District (TNRD) Building at Victoria Street and Fifth Avenue and next to Gaglardi Square at Seymour Street and Second Avenue.
“We want to be able to see them in Riverside Park, Pioneer Park and the downtown as well,” Pooler said. “We’re just trying to work with the city to identify some other locations.”
Pooler said the goal is to place the trucks in areas where there is already some type of outdoor seating, what she said other BIAs refer to as “sticky places.”
Both Gaglardi Square and the TNRD plaza fit the bill and, Pooler said, could do with some livening up.
She said she’d like to see the trucks also visit other parts of the city, coming downtown for about three hours three times a week specifically to target the lunch rush.
“It would get people to use that park more,” she said of Gaglardi Square.
“Because it’s a beautiful park and it’s a great place for people that work downtown to go have lunch.”
Pooler said the food trucks are part of a broader campaign to get more people using public spaces in downtown Kamloops.
The KCBIA is working with the Kamloops Art Gallery to encourage other kinds of programming in the TNRD plaza area.
Pooler said the hope is to encourage the Wednesday farmer’s market or performing artists to take advantage of the space. She also thinks it could be a good spot for yoga or tai chi classes.
“It’s a great space and it’s been under-utilized and has potential for much more vitality,” she said.
The two existing squares aren’t the only public places the association plans to focus on this year.
Pooler said she’s also hoping to create temporary public spaces on some private land in the downtown area.
No discussions have taken place with landowners yet, but Pooler envisions transforming under-utilized lots with paint, patio furniture and a few well-placed barricades.
Pooler said she is eager to see proposals for all the projects head to Kamloops city council and, when necessary, to the TNRD board of directors, this year.
Also on the KCBIA’s agenda for the year is a continuation of the back-alley mural program and finding funding resources to turn it customer care and patrol (CAP) team into a year-round program.
