The Village of Radium is in the early stages of planning a new project for the community. The Village council is starting to plan a new community hall to replace the existing hall that was partially built in 1967. The current hall was built as a part of a Centennial project and has been added to over the years. Village of Radium new community hall plans include demolishing the old hall and building the new facility. Council has just gone through the first request for proposal (RFP) stages of the project receiving 15 submissions of interest for the design of the new hall.

“We’ve narrowed it down to four, our planner Arne Dohlen is starting to dig deeper with those four prospects,” said Councillor Ron Verboom.

The four designers the council chose now are working on designs that fit the communities vision for the new community hall. The council hopes for the new hall include 200 person occupancy, a kitchen and a basement level. If the budget allows the plan will be to have the library go into the lower level of the hall.

“This is total preliminary we have a certain budget for it and we’re seeing what these designers will come up within that budget limit,” said Councillor Verboom.

The project will also take into consideration the recently passed a Wood First resolution and Bylaw and the design of the community hall will include as much wood as possible. Council is hoping to see this project begin construction in spring 2017. Councillor Verboom estimated if all goes as planned the construction of the community hall will take six months to complete.

“Next steps are basically to get the response back from the top four choices we’ve made and then make a decision as to which one we’re going to go with,” said Councillor Verboom.

Once a decision has been made on which designer submission to go with the council will work along side them to ensure the new community hall will meet the needs of the Village of Radium. The new hall will be built at the existing hall location of 4863 Stanley St.