The City of Burnaby has approved a new home for the South Burnaby Neighbourhood House, one of the largest local community service groups.
Executive director Antonia Beck was excited about the news.
"This has been a lot of hard work and quite the journey in terms of starting the neighbourhod house," she said.
Beck described the current location on the corner of Imperial Street and Jubilee Avenue, as an old, cramped, fragmented space that can't accommodate big groups.
"We can't do our gatherings here. We always have to look for other places to borrow spaces," she said.
The new digs, which should be ready by 2013, will be part of MetroPlace, a 46-storey residential development, close to Metrotown SkyTrain station. The developer was allowed to increase density in exchange for making space for non-profit groups. Beck said the developer is giving up 16,000 square feet, and the neighbourhood house will get 12,000 of that.
According to Beck, the purpose-built area will have three floors and will include a reception area, offices, meeting rooms, a child-friendly space for a parents' drop-in program and room to eat.
"The thing we're looking very forward to is a large banquet room -a meeting room -where we can have our community dinners, with a kitchen," she said.
The neighbourhood house has been looking for a bigger venue since it started about 15 years ago.
"We had to go through a process of applying for city amenity space, but it's been very well-known that the neighbourhood house needed a home in Burnaby," Beck said.
The South Burnaby Neighbourhood House runs a variety of programs designed to bring neighbours together, including child-care programs, groups for seniors and youth leadership training.
