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Expect new Yellowknife Visitor Centre to open in late summer or early fall: Mayor

After facing delays due to supply chain disruptions and the Covid-19 pandemic, the new Yellowknife Visitor’s Centre is expected to open in late summer or early fall, according to the City’s mayor.
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Mayor Rebecca Alty says the long boarded-up 50 Street entrance to the Centre Square Mall will be opened to make the future visitor’s centre more accessible. Ian Down/NNSL photo

After facing delays due to supply chain disruptions and the Covid-19 pandemic, the new Yellowknife Visitor Centre is expected to open in late summer or early fall, according to the city’s mayor.

Mayor Rebecca Alty confirmed on July 4 the visitor centre will be opening later this year, despite originally being planned to open in time for the summer tourism season.

“The classic thing that we hear all the time right now is Covid and supply chain issues,” said Alty. “So we are hoping to have it open late summer, early fall. But yeah, with supply chain, shipping, and so many people down with Covid this past spring, the project’s just a little behind schedule.”

The facility will occupy the lot in Centre Square Mall the used to house a Bank of Montreal branch. A side door on 50 Street will be opened to make the centre more accessible.

Alty could not immediately say if there were any cost overruns associated with the delays.

The facility will also double as a non-commercial art gallery.

“It wouldn’t be a place where you could come buy the art, but we’d have a rotation of artists showing their work,” said Alty. “And then to buy their products, you would go to one of the local stores or wherever the artist sells their work.”

The old Northern Frontier Visitor’s Centre was closed because of structural issues in 2017 before being demolished in 2020.

The visitor centre was on the city’s list of priorities for 2022.

“When tourism returns, we will be ready!” A paragraph on the visitor centre in a January 2022 city document entitled “Celebrating Achievements 2019‐2022” reads.

“It sounds like it’s gonna be quite a great place to not only showcase what’s in Yellowknife, but coming to Yellowknife as a jumping off point to the rest of the Northwest Territories as well,” said Alty.