Sponsored Content – Sep 1, 2021 / 12:01 pm | Story: 344522
Photo: Contributed
Orchard Park Properties has once again proven that the Kelowna real estate market shows no sign of slowing down, with the second successful launch in their Water Street by the Park development. After releasing their first tower in late July and selling out all 144 available units in less than 48 hours, the second tower, The Eli at Water Street by the Park, saw 175 eager owners sign contracts over its launch weekend, beginning Aug. 26.
Between these two releases, buyers from both the local area and from across Canada, snapped up more than 300 units priced from the mid-$300,000s to $1,600,000, resulting in a huge influx into the downtown Kelowna economy and a tremendous sales success for Water Street by the Park that generated national news headlines.
“It’s been a major success by any measure, and we’re still working our way through processing a lot of contracts for The Eli,” says Chad MacTavish, sales director of ACE Project Management, which is representing the development. “We knew with having over 11,000 people registered for the project that we were set up to succeed, but how fast buyers moved on securing these properties as soon as they became available shows how the developers, Anthony Beyrouti and Apriano Meola, really brought the exact product that people want in Kelowna right now and how strong the market is. Selling over 300 homes that quickly makes it obvious how much people want to live and invest in Kelowna, and The Eli is tracking to sell out even faster than we anticipated.”
While Kelowna living is very appealing to Canadians, Water Street by the Park certainly upped the lifestyle offer for condo developments in the city. In part of what will be a three building development located in downtown Kelowna next to Kelowna City Park, The Eli will be the tallest tower between Vancouver and Calgary, offering outstanding lake, city and valley views, and will become a landmark on the Kelowna skyline. Orchard Park Properties created an impressive amenities package for their residents to enjoy year-round, including a heated pool, hot tubs, community green space with outdoor dining and entertainment areas, co-work centre, fully equipped fitness facility, a screening room, golf simulator, putting green and more—all in a location with a convenient 95 walk score and 98 bike score.
If there have been questions about the booming real estate market softening in Kelowna, the overwhelming success of selling upwards of 300 homes and counting during two fast-moving launches at Water Street by the Park should reconfirm that the city is showing no signs of slowing down, particularly in the downtown area. As for The Eli at Water Street by the Park, there are still homes in the 340-unit tower available starting in the mid-$400,000s, but buyers will need to move as quickly as the marketplace.
“We’re still around-the-clock with contracts,” MacTavish says. “We had a lot of buyers that didn’t purchase in time to get into Tower One and were disappointed, so we’re trying to make sure that people are getting their preferred homes in The Eli as quickly as we can. We’ve really had to make sure people understand this isn’t a ‘we’ve got time’ project. It’s a ‘buy now or it’s gone’ development.”
Those looking to secure a home in Kelowna’s tallest tower can schedule an appointment at www.waterstbythepark.com, or contact [email protected] or 250-763-7275 for immediate assistance, while units are still available at The Eli at Water Street by the Park. Further announcements regarding the launch of Tower Three in the development are anticipated this fall.
This article is written by or on behalf of the sponsoring client and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
Sponsored Content – Sep 1, 2021 / 12:01 am | Story: 344432
Photo: LaSalle College Vancouver
Explore a world of creativity!
In the past year, Vancouver has seen an uptick in demand for talent within B.C. creative industries.
With the high volume of work opportunities in the arts, now is a great time to start your new career journey at one of the city’s top applied arts and design schools.
Offering more than 30 creative programs, LaSalle College Vancouver is among Canada’s leading creative arts degree granting institutions—where students can hone in their skills and graduate primed and ready to begin their careers in game design and VFX, graphic design, interior design, audio and film, fashion and culinary arts.
LCV also offers online courses through the school’s e-learning programs, which cover subjects from video game 3D modelling to fashion styling and interior design. Those students interested in earning credits toward a university degree while exploring a broad range of academic concentrations can explore LCV’s associate of arts degree program.
Students will benefit from a private arts education with quality instruction, a vast industry network, and newly equipped facilities, as well as gain internationally recognized credentials through LCV’s degree, diploma and certificate programs.
Photo: LaSalle College Vancouver
Curious about tapping into your creative potential? Check it all out from the comfort of home at LaSalle College Vancouver’s virtual open house on Sept. 11.
From 10 a.m. to 11:30 p.m., prospective students can explore the world of creativity offered at LaSalle, with the opportunity to learn all about their different schools and programs, creative career pathways, and cutting-edge online and on-campus facilities. Open house attendees will also have a chance to connect and chat with instructors and the rest of the LaSalle College Vancouver team.
To register for the virtual open house event, visit lasallecollegevancouver.com/events/open-house.
Another reason to consider making LaSalle College Vancouver your arts and design school of choice is that you’ll be first in line when its brand new campus opens up.
Opening in summer 2023, LCV’s new creative and applied arts campus will be located in Vancouver’s Renfrew Village—right next door to its current campus. The new building, which stands tall at seven storeys and has more than 108,000 square feet of space, aims to be a purpose-built education centre where architecture, technology and art merge together.
With state-of-the-art culinary kitchens, maker spaces, a gaming lounge and a suspended theatre that also serves as a multi-purpose space, this future-focused learning environment will put active learning and social engagement at the forefront.
Even more, in this health-first certified building, students can expect to have access to outdoor space, rooms for physical activity, healthy food options and a meditation garden for a truly mindful on-campus experience.
Languages Across Borders (LAB) Vancouver and LaSalle College Vancouver High School, a unique creative arts centric independent high school, will also call this new building home.
Photo: LaSalle College Vancouver
The new campus that will open in summer 2023.
This article is written by or on behalf of the sponsoring client and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
Sponsored Content – Aug 31, 2021 / 12:02 pm | Story: 344313
Photo: Contributed
Pictured from left: Doug Rankmore, KGH Foundation CEO; Allison Ramchuk, KGH Foundation chief development officer; Dr. Nevin de Korompay, KGH interventional radiologist; Judy and Marshall Eliuk; Cory Bendall, IH network director, stroke care; Dr. Aleksander Tkach, KGH vascular neurologist, and IH Stroke Network medical director.
When it comes to stroke, every moment matters. And in those crucial moments Kelowna General Hospital will be more ready than ever.
Now, thanks to a stunningly successful fundraising campaign spearheaded by the Kelowna General Hospital Foundation, the level of stroke care available for Interior patients is about to become world-class.
Thanks to the generosity of hundreds of local donors, the $8 million raised by the foundation’s Every Moment Matters campaign will provide significant advancements, such as a state-of-the-art intervention room for stroke treatment at the hospital, advanced rehabilitation and service and funding for future innovations related to stroke care.
“Once again the community has responded swiftly and with incredible generosity,” said Doug Rankmore, CEO of the KGH Foundation.
“Stroke is a devastating condition, not just for the patients but for their whole family as well,” added Rankmore.
Last year in the Interior Health region, there were more than 1,800 reported cases of stroke.
Photo: Contributed
Money raised will fund Endovascular Thrombectomy (EVT) at KGH and related stroke health services
Stroke is the leading cause of long-term disability in adults and the third leading cause of death B.C.
Rankmore called the stroke care program at KGH world-class, adding Interior Health is already receiving calls from health authorities elsewhere asking about it.
The appeal to the public was set to begin in March 2020 but community fundraising was delayed for a year because of the Covid-19 pandemic. And in just five months since its official launch in March 2021, the campaign has reached its goal, thanks in part to a significant gift from Marshall Eliuk, an Alberta-based businessman who now enjoys living in the Okanagan part-time.
Eliuk is the same generous donor who, in 2019, provided a sizeable gift to complete the foundation’s campaign to bring advanced heart rhythm services to KGH.
The funds raised will support a comprehensive stroke care plan that includes $4.6 million for the acquisition of endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) at KGH, a service that has been previously only available in Vancouver and Calgary in Western Canada. EVT, now the new standard of care for ischemic stroke, is an advanced procedure in which neurologists pull a blood clot out of a stroke patient’s artery to restore blood flow to the brain. A good outcome results in a near reversal of disability in a stroke patient.
The enhancement of the IH stroke program, with KGH as its hub, will also support the recruitment of specialists, provide for the expansion of the stroke unit, expand rehabilitation services and enable enhanced tele-neurology for access to specialist care, particularly for rural, remote and Indigenous communities across the region.
“The impact will be absolutely life-changing for our regional stroke patients,” said Dr. Aleksander Tkach, a vascular neurologist at KGH and medical director for the IH Stroke Network.
“I am so incredibly grateful to Mr. Eliuk and the people of this community for making this possible.”
In addition to individual donations and third-party fundraisers, corporations such as Canada Life, who recently donated $100K to the campaign, also stepped up with significant gifts.
Since 1978, the KGH Foundation has worked with a generous community to raise funds to support world-class health care close to home for a rapidly expanding and diverse population in the B.C. Interior
Today, the KGH Foundation is the lead fundraising organization for Kelowna General Hospital and its associated facilities, JoeAnna’s House, and Central Okanagan Hospice House.
Photo: Contributed
Dr. Aleksander Tkach, a vascular neurologist at KGH
This article is written by or on behalf of the sponsoring client and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
Sponsored Content – Aug 31, 2021 / 12:01 am | Story: 344316
Photo: Robb Thompson
By Tim Neville
discover
• verb
Stumbling into something amazing that you never imagined existed. An experience everyone has the first time they ski SilverStar.
Back when I was discovering that I wanted mountains always to be in my life, some friends and I decided to go play in some big ones by driving a pickup from New Mexico to Alaska. It was already late when we set out, winter was curling the days at the edges, and the truck had just two seats for the three of us, so someone had to ride for thousands of miles wrapped in a sleeping bag in the bed in the back. We were dirtbags, and we never got close to our goal. We discovered the mountains of British Columbia, instead, and that changed everything.
Fast forward a decade or so and that excitement for the north has only grown. I have skiing to thank for that, and for years, winter never felt complete without lumbering over the border with boards to explore someplace new. Canada’s coolest province counts 10 mountain ranges and 13 ski resorts between its ample borders, and so the options for a good ski holiday are endless. Yet even among such company, a place called SilverStar stands out.
I hadn’t heard of SilverStar until one night at a party in Seattle, where the resort found its way to me almost as a whisper, except the DJ was super loud so it was more like a shout. “Trust me,” my friend John yelled over “Born this Way,” an IPA warming in his hand. “You’ll love it.”
SilverStar sits in the 10,000-foot Monashee range north of Kelowna, a city of about 130,000 people who live out their days next to vineyards, parks, and lakes that dot Canada’s pleasing Okanagan Valley. If Whistler is the Great White North’s Gstaad, SilverStar is something less famous but more awesome, maybe its Lenk or Adelboden, a sprawling network of ski slopes, cross-country ski trails, fat-bike paths, and snowshoeing routes that race across a roaring landscape full of discovery without the crowds. Make no mistake: These mountains are made for skiers. Storms take no prisoners with 23 feet of light, dry snow dumped across almost 3,300 skiable acres. You can cook your quads on 2,500-vertical-foot runs or take it mellow on a 5-mile cruiser. There’s a front side and a backside, which has enough double-blacks that folks call it hairy.
As cool as it would be, SilverStar isn’t some secret Shangri-La that no one knows about—Google can point the way. And, in fact, at more than six decades old, it is one of Canada’s longest running resorts. Even so, it still felt very undiscovered when my wife and I went to check it out. Short on time but long on energy, we flew into Kelowna and pointed the wheels north for the 40-mile drive to the resort, even though we could have easily driven from our home in the Pacific Northwest. The broad Okanagan Lake gathered to our left as we passed places like Pixie Beach and Lake Country. Soon the road cocked skyward and the engine whined as we climbed the last of a vertical mile up to the resort. Instantly, we knew we’d discovered a gem.
Bright buildings painted in rich blues and pumpkin-carriage orange rose around a village of shops and spas with a gondola drifting overhead. Unlike the heavy timbered clichés you find at so many resorts around the world, SilverStar had more of a frontier-meets-Victorian vibe, with witches hat cupolas and scalloped siding to enliven condos, hotels, and shops. A boardwalk ran past happening hotspots like the Red Antler, where we’d catch live music and an elk burger. We could ski right out of the village—no need to ride a lift first.
Photo: Robb Thompson
We got a room at the Silver Creek Lodge, one of nine on-mountain places to stay, which had a kitchen and fireplace, and then wandered over to Pizza Gratta where we laid out a plan over delicious sourdough crust pizza. The more than 130 marked ski runs were just the tip of the resort. At our fingertips lay more than 65 miles of cross-country ski paths, the largest network of trails groomed daily in all of Canada. We could ride the gondola and ski lifts to access those trails as well, a novelty I hadn’t discovered since I’d been in Europe. (Come summer, those trails turn into nearly 80 miles of bike paths—the country’s second most for a resort). A network of about 10 miles of fat-bike trails spiralled out from a skating pond, too. A pass called My1Pass would get us access to it all. With some three-day lift tickets going for as low as $84—$61 to us Yanks—we felt like we’d struck silver. It was only later that I learned that SilverStar counts among one of the most affordable resorts on the continent. It was certainly the best value of any place I’d ever been in B.C.
We spent the next few days doing our best to carry out our plan, but those plans were almost immediately hijacked by new discoveries that led to other plans. We skied hard, on steep shots like Gowabunga, and raced down Caliper Ridge. We blasted through the trees and traversed out to some stashes that no one else had claimed. But we took time to chill, relatively speaking, too. We skate-skied through the pines and stopped at warming huts to eat Dutch pastries, and we took a sleigh ride out to Wild Horseman’s—a wagon-wheels-in-the-rafters kind of joint—where I gorged on barbecue. We skied up to a bowling alley (a first!) but we didn’t go in. There’s a lot we didn’t do, actually. We didn’t do yoga or go snowmobiling or catch a hockey game, either. We didn’t go snowshoeing or even ice skate on that pond. Next time.
Instead we just stayed put. As I learned on that dirtbag drive to Alaska, the best discoveries often happen that way.
Insider Tips:
Sleep: Almost anywhere in the village is ideal, so you can’t really go wrong. The Vance Creek Hotel boasts modern rooms that sit right on the boardwalk.
Eat: The Den has poutine like you can only get in Canada. If you have a hankering for something not so Canadian, The Bulldog Grand Cafe does awesome Indonesian food.
Après: Head to The Red Antler for live music. Drink a flight of beer at The Final Run Bar, which is next to the bowling alley, which is really what that “walk mode” on your ski boots was designed for.
Don’t Miss: Riding a gondola with your cross-country skis is unlike anything this side of Switzerland. A great way to mix up your days.
Photo: Jackson Parker
This article is written by or on behalf of the sponsoring client and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
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