As visitorship increases in Revelstoke following the Omicron wave, the ongoing housing crisis continues to directly impact local businesses, contributing to staff shortages and reduced service hours, putting added strain on business owners, and hindering profitability.
Now, a group of local businesses and non-profit organizations have banded together for a new project: the Revelstoke Employee Housing Society. Community Futures Revelstoke and other community partners are working to secure the Cube Hotel property at 311 Campbell Avenue to provide employee housing for local businesses and non-profit organizations.
Society representative and the owner of The Explorers Society Hotel and Quartermaster Eatery, Stephen Jenkins, says that business owners like himself have spent incredible amounts of time attempting to secure housing for employees, and that it’s caused major interruptions in the services offered.
“Whether you want to go out for a meal and the restaurant that you want to attend is closed or you want to go to the swimming pool and the pool is closed because they don’t have a lifeguard and the reason they don’t have a lifeguard is because they don’t have a place for them to live, this problem has been coming and now is here basically in full force,” Jenkins said.
“This [project is] enabling businesses to have a predictable, attractive, cost-effective, available employee housing source that they can subscribe to, such that they can actually focus on running their businesses as opposed to securing housing for their employees.”
Jenkins says that the idea is a unique one built from scratch with the needs and resources available in Revelstoke in mind. He describes the accommodations as the modern dormitory you always wanted to have in college but never did. Their aim is to tweak the rooms from being hotel or hostel style to make them more like tiny homes.
The society has entered into a conditional contract to purchase the property and are now determining whether there is enough interest from Revelstoke businesses to move forward with the purchase. They are currently accepting expressions of interest from businesses and non-profit organizations interested in taking advantage of a membership model where they will be entitled to lease rooms from the society on a commercial lease and sublet those rooms to employees in need.
Members of the society will not gain any ownership or equity in the property and will provide the society with loans equal to $40,000, plus monthly rent, for each room they wish to use. The loans will be used to capitalize the purchase of the property, will be interest-free, and will be repayable to the member should they choose to leave the society. If the $40,000 loan is not manageable for some businesses or organizations, there will be financing options available.
Jenkins says that interest in the project has been stronger than they even expected. Once they have received all expressions of interest, they will be making selections for society memberships and giving priority to small, local businesses and ones that have a demonstrated need for employee housing. Jenkins says they are also aiming for a mix of businesses and non-profit organizations.
The interim board of the society is currently made up by Stephen Jenkins, Cheers Liquor Stores owner and operator Brady Beruschi, and Monashee Spirits Craft Distillery owner Josh McLafferty. Society members will need to elect a long term board at a later date.
There is much to do between now and the deadline that the society has set for themselves. Jenkins says they are keen to finish setting up the society for operation, staff the accommodations and do a minor renovation in order to become fully operational in time.
“Revelstoke is a unique place and there is a lot of creativity here so this project is a good representation of how we take a difficult situation and try to innovate around it in a way that works for everybody,” Jenkins said.
“There’s a lot still to do. This is still a risky endeavour for us to pull this off by June 1, but we’re working hard on it every day.”
New society hopes to fund purchase of Cube Hotel for staff housing
Expressions of interest submissions from businesses and non-profit organizations are being accepted until March 11. As long as there is enough interest, the project will move ahead with an opening date of June 1.
In an unrelated but interesting note, the hotel was reviewed in The New York Times in 2015.
Editor’s note: This story briefly published online then was offline for a couple of days soon after due to a website update issue.
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