12 Jun 2025 7 min read drop

The Future of the Old Salmon Arm Municipal Hall

The old municipal hall at 31 Hudson Ave, Salmon Arm

In a surprising move that nobody saw coming, the City of Salmon Arm is requesting public input on something. The future of the old municipal hall.

First, a bit of context. If you've already read this elsewhere, feel free to skip ahead.

The address of this building is 31 Hudson Ave. You’ve probably walked by it a hundred times unaware of the crumbling structure and asbestos festival going in inside.

Google maps calls it a senior citizens drop in centre

It was built in 1928 and was Salmon Arm’s original municipal hall until 1970. In 2023, an engineer gave the building a once-over and, in technical terms, called it “poor.” Not ideal.

Here’s what he found:

The foundation is cracked.
The walls are cracked.
The floors are sloping.

And that's just the structural issues. It's also full to the brim with the previously mentioned asbestos, as well as lead paint, and crystalline silica.

Without major money, this building is on a slow march toward collapse. If the city wants to preserve this historic location, it’s going to need deep pockets. Mayor and Council, if you're reading this, please don't let Daddy Warbucks have his way with this one. You've sold out to him enough times already. If you know, you know.

As for next steps, here are the options:

Tear it down completely: $940K to $1.4M.
Tear down parts of it (somehow more expensive): $967K to $1.46M.
Repair and revitalize: $700K to $1.05M.
Slap some duct tape on it and hope for the best: $96K to $144K.

Whatever happens, it's clear that change will be coming, and foolishly the city has requested input from the public.

Here at Shuswap Drop, we have some experience making recommendations for downtown development. You can read about that here.

As for this specific building, we are going to make three suggestions of what should NOT be done, and then three suggestions of what SHOULD be done.

First, what to avoid.

Another Parking Lot

First we should address the most obvious one. It's right beside a dirty little parking patch that has no business being there. Naturally, someone will suggest that we demolish the municipal hall and expand the parking lot to cover both lots. I'm serious, I guarantee you someone will bring this up at the public forum on June 17 at City Hall. (If you attend this forum and someone brings it up, please shout 'SHUSWAP DROP CALLED IT' so that everyone knows you're smarter than them). Not only is this a bad idea, it's an incredibly boring idea. The parking situation in this town has already caused enough pain. Again, we covered this riveting topic here, and ruffled some major feathers, by the way. We may do a follow up on that in the future.

Vape's R Us

We can all relate to the feeling of excitement when a space comes available and we're all wondering what new business will join our town... and then overnight it turns into a vape shop and your excitement turns to anger. You feel like nothing could ever be good again in this world. You think to yourself, how many of these places do we need? It's like you're living in a horror movie called Rise of the Planet of the Vapes and you're the one running for your life. I think we can all agree that there are enough places to buy this paraphernalia, and we don't need more people walking around town madly sucking their death straws like they are still nursing from the grim reaper himself. We can't let this happen.

Housing - of any kind

Do we have a housing crisis or do we have residential buildings that sit empty? Yes to both, somehow. There are several condos, townhouses, and rental complexes currently under construction in city limits already. If all those fill up to max capacity and people still need more, then fine, build something. But building another one in the downtown core based on projections or speculations is not the best idea. It's not the worst idea either, that was parking as I said above, but it's not the best idea. At face value it can sound like a good thing but really these projects are just ways for rich people to fit as many people in a small space as possible and squeeze them for every penny they've got. It only benefits the owner or developer. The people living in these units spend all their money on rent and have nothing left to spend on the businesses right outside their front door, so it's a tease for everyone really. They live next to everything they could ever want, but they have no money to spend, and the businesses have customers constantly around their businesses, but no extra sales.

Those are three bad ideas off the top of my head that are at risk of being discussed. If any of these options turn into a reality, Shuswap Drop is going nuclear.

Onto the brainstorming mode of what we would love to see happen to this location.

Snack Shack

Before you roll your eyes, this wouldn't be your normal concession stand with hot dogs, ice cream cones, and lukewarm iced tea. This would be one of those places that imports different snacks and candies from around the world and stocks them wall to wall. You want to try some Whiskey and Haggis flavoured chips from Scotland? Or Wasabi KitKat's from Japan? How about a Scorpion Sucker from the far away land of California? Add in some comfy chairs and retro decor and you'll be the talk of the town. This kind of thing would get lots of media attention, plus all the school kids that loiter downtown at lunch need somewhere new to hang out.

Pool Hall

You can find the odd pool table in town but there isn't really a good place to just go and play for an hour or two. How sweet would it be to have a dedicated place with several nice tables and a bar for drinks? A place like this would give people something to do in the evenings, which would fill a massive gap in the market. Everyone knows that you can't find anything to do here beyond 4pm, so a pool hall open 7 days a week from noon to midnight would be a hit. To make this work, you'd need to clamp down on your offerings to keep it cool. Don't do live music, don't put up dart boards, don't sell gum from those circular vending machines, and never EVER host karaoke. Stick to the script and do it well. Pool tables, drinks, nice lighting, that's it.

Live Music Venue

This would be cool, but there have to be some ground rules. It's a small space so you gotta plan around that. Limit it to only certain types of music that lend themselves to that environment. Jazz, folk, maybe spoken word if you're feeling crazy. This is not the place for metal heads on acid to jump around to grunge, nor is it the spot for a rave with a guy pushing buttons on his Lenovo calling himself a DJ. Wouldn't it be cool to have a venue known for good music and limited seating? Something that is hard to get into, you know, once tickets go live, they sell out fast because of the exclusivity of it all. Take it a step further and don't announce the artists at all so you don't know what you're going to get until you show up. Seriously, this is a good idea. It's so good that I'm tempted to give up my anonymity and push this for real. But there's no way the powers at be would do something cool like this, so for now I remain in the shadows.

If you're reading this and want to take any of these suggestions and claim credit, by all means, go ahead. As long as something cool happens with that location, I don't care how we get there, even if you steal my ideas.

It's almost an insult to involve the public in this, though. There's 20,000 people in this town, and about 12 of them have good ideas. Even if they show up with their best ideas locked and loaded, they have no chance of being taken seriously. I'm not saying the city will definitely screw this up, but I promise you they won't do anything cool no matter what good ideas come out of the public forum. Everyone will just follow the money like mindless drones and we'll end up with something lame that nobody asked for.

If you're considering going to the public forum, let me save you some time and skip to the ending. The outcome here is going to be parking, for sure. But hey, at least they'll add in an abundance of EV charges because they're so innovative and forward-thinking.