They weren’t at the grand-opening-welcome-to-the-neighbourhood party.
But tenants have flocked to one of Vernon’s newest housing developments.
The three-building, 216-unit Creekview Heights* rental apartments on Deleenheer Road, off 20th Street in Vernon’s north end, was officially opened Tuesday, Sept. 28, by Vernon mayor Victor Cumming and representatives of the developer, Guelph-based Skyline Living, and the builder, Highstreet Ventures of Kelowna.
A few tenants did pop by to say hello and enjoy some delicious snacks from Vernon’s Gumtree Catering.
While attendance was limited by COVID-19 health restrictions, Skyline Living provided charcuterie boxes and gift bags to each tenant in addition to putting their names in for prizes.
Cumming was impressed by the speed of construction as the buildings went up over the past two years in complicated times.
“We have lots of projects in Vernon as we’re growing fairly rapidly, and there’s usually a gap between the proposed timeline and actual timeline,” said Cumming. “On this project, the actual timeline matched quite closely to the proposed timeline.”
The buildings opened in July 2020.
They feature one- and two-bedroom apartments, each with in-suite laundry, modern finishes and a private balcony or patio.
There is also a special amenities area in one building which is for use for all three building tenants with a kitchen, lounge and gymnasium.
“The community is built by the people in it and throughout COVID many tenants enjoyed our virtual events like pilates classes, trivia nights, macrame classes and the list goes on,” said Skyline vice-president B.J. Santavy.
“As restrictions continue to loosen, we look forward to in-person social events that will be hosted and facilitated by our on-site team.
“Tenants will be urged to collaborate and make suggestions as to what events they’d like such as beer and wine tasting, potlucks, cooking classes and book clubs to name a few ideas.”
Vernon has been a popular spot for Skyline Living.
“We’ve got two other small buildings within the city limits, it’s been wonderful and we’re looking forward to doing more business here,” Skyline Apartments president Matthew Organ said.
“We appreciate the mixed values of community and quality and building and price point,” added Cumming.
“It’s a complicated mix to do and you have to do it well.
“We really appreciate it being done during the last two-and-a-half years when it was a very complicated time to construct.”
*Editor’s note: the story previously referred to the project as Creekside Heights. It has since been corrected to read Creekview Heights. The Morning Star regrets this error.
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