Williams Lake Indian Band will be moving its downtown Williams Lake offices into a permanent home, still in the downtown core.
Chief Willie Sellars said the band purchased the building on Yorston Street that housed FYidoctors until it relocated to Prosperity Ridge at the end of October.
In June 2017, WLIB opened up some offices in Williams Lake at a leased space at 172 Second Avenue North, where Taseko Mines Ltd. had offices in the past.
The downtown office houses the band’s natural resource management, economic development and lands departments, as well as some of the band’s own corporate entities.
Read more: WLIB opens government office in downtown Williams Lake
“We had thought about purchasing the building we are in right now, but we found the FYi building would be a better fit, considering the amount of staff we have,” Sellars told the Tribune. “The building we are currently in now is too big. We’d have to look at leasing out the first and second floor.”
Sellars said the new location is good for WLIB and there’s a bus stop right outside the building.
“We will be doing some renovations first and then start moving in on April 1. We had a bidding war on it if you can imagine. There were four people vying for it.”
In December 2018, Sellars announced the WLIB’s plan to construct a cannabis retail shop on its IR#6 land within the city limits of Williams Lake on Mackenzie Avenue South near Scout Island.
Read more: WLIB embarking into cannabis industry with retail store planned for Williams Lake
By Dec. 28, Titan Built Construction Ltd. had poured the footings for the cannabis shop and was looking at possibly pouring the concrete slabs
There was also some archeological monitoring done at the site by Sugar Cane Archaeology in early December, but Sellars said there was nothing of significance found at the site.
“The ministry of highways put a bunch of fill in there when they were building the highway back in 1981 and 1982, that’s what we found out.”
Originally the plan was to put the cannabis shop building at the back side of the lot, but there was too much fill, he said.
“There was 15 to 20 feet of fill in some spots. That’s why we are building it close to the front because we were running into three to five feet of fill there.”
It is the goal that the cannabis shop will be ready to open in March 2019, Sellars said.
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