By ROY WOOD

Prospects for a full-service hotel in Oliver are a bit brighter these days after a Kamloops hotelier said he’s interested in building an 80-room facility on the Centennial RV Park site.

Mayor Ron Hovanes told a council meeting Monday he is “quite excited and optimistic” with the proposal from Mundi Hotel Enterprises to purchase two acres of the site for “a hotel with pool and an eatery.”

Ron Mundi owns the Coast Kamloops Hotel and Conference Centre. “This is quite exciting,” said Hovanes. “These are real people with real interest.” The mayor said the value of the project would be in excess of $10 million.

The town has long sought to attract someone to build a hotel and recently sent information packages to some 40 potential developers detailing the advantages of Oliver.

According to Hovanes the town received inquiries from “more than one developer.”

The most promising is clearly the proposal from Mundi who, Hovanes said, seems to be ready to start building immediately on the town-owned site on Fairview Road and Station Street.

However, the Centennial RV Park managers (on contract) have made commitments to RV owners for this year and so wouldn’t be willing to vacate until the end of the year.

Council on Monday asked town staff to examine the roads capital plan to see if funding could be found to upgrade Station Street to the appropriate level.

Chief administrative officer Cathy Cowan said bureaucratic impediments to the sale are few. A hotel is an accepted use under the Official Community Plan, but a rezoning would be necessary.

And there would need to be public notification about an impending sale of the town land.

The only other prospect for a hotel in town is proposal for 14-room-plus-penthouse boutique attached to the Medici Gelataria restaurant on Fairview just west of Kootenay.  The building containing Medici’s and other businesses,  Richard Kendricks,  told council in October he was looking for investors for the project. Hovanes said he hasn’t heard anything new about the project.