Upgrades at the Pender Harbour Reading Centre and School of Music in Madeira Park are one step closer. On Oct. 17, the Sunshine Coast Regional District’s (SCRD) electoral services committee recommended agreements for capital projects to be completed by community groups on those regionally owned but locally operated facilities.
The Pender Harbour Reading Centre Society is proposing to have attic and under-floor insulation installed in the centre and the existing windows replaced with energy-efficient ones, according to a report on the committee meeting agenda.
The society is to bear all costs associated with the proposed improvements. It received a $10,000 grant for the insulation project from the Sunshine Coast Foundation and $8,000 for the window replacements from the Sunshine Coast Community Forest’s Community Legacy Fund. With the latter project estimated to cost $16,000, that work will not be commencing until the full amount is secured by the society, said the report.
At the adjacent School of Music building, the Pender Harbour Music Society has plans to use a $12,000 grant from the Sunshine Coast Community Forest Community Legacy Fund to help install two heat pumps and three air handlers, a second staff report detailed. With the estimated cost of that work currently at $29,000 that document noted it is the society’s plan to cover the remainder “through donations and deferred revenue” and that “the project will not commence until all the necessary funds have been secured."
In discussion of that project, Area A director Leonard Lee said that along with building heating, cooling and energy efficiency improvements, once the project is completed, the seating capacity of the venue could be expanded from 100 to 150.
For both projects, the staff reports noted that, “Community led projects such as these provide a unique opportunity to find efficiencies for renewal of SCRD infrastructure that might not have otherwise been prioritized based on available funding."
The projects will next go to the board for approval, likely in early November.
Words missing in article? Your adblocker might be preventing hyperlinked text from appearing.
