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New layout for Silver City Days

Silver City Days 2018 will move further south, toward the Riverfront Centre, in 2018
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The City of Trail announced the new Silver City Days locale on Monday. The 2018 midway will be located on a portion of Esplanade Avenue (next to the Riverfront Centre) along Helena Street to Cedar Avenue. The street food fair, now named the River Front Food Fair, will be situated along the Esplanade from Spokane Street to Eldorado Street. (Sheri Regnier photo)

Four scenarios later, Silver City Days 2018 has landed in a new neighbourhood.

The May celebration will remain in downtown but will migrate one block south from Esplanade and Spokane Street to the Riverfront Centre frontage and Helena Street to Cedar Avenue.

After the vacant Esplanade lots sold this year, the organizing committee was tasked with finding a way to fit the midway rides and outdoor food fair in the downtown with minimal disruption to everyday business.

After consulting with Shooting Star Amusements, emergency services, Trail Transit and various groups, Coun. Sandy Santori says the committee is confident with its decision.

“With the recent sale of a portion of the City-owned Esplanade lands, the Silver City Days Planning Committee had to come up with a new event footprint, specifically for Shooting Star Amusements’ midway rides and games,” said Santori, committee chair. “Our goal was to make the changes without causing too much downtown disruption to parking, businesses and residents while considering pedestrian and event-goer safety, access to utilities and the overall flow and longevity of the festival.”

In addition to the new carnival layout, one of the event’s most popular draws, the outdoor food fair, has a new name and new view.

The tasty feature is now called the River Front Food Fair and will be situated along Esplanade from Spokane Street to Eldorado Street.

“You can’t beat the view of the Columbia River from the Esplanade,” Santori said.

“We envision picnic tables on the water side of street, leaving plenty of room for a great selection of food vendors on the other side,” he added.

“This new location also creates a natural flow to the Saturday Sidewalk Café in the Cominco Arena, and the Evening Passeggiata (date and time to be determined), which was established last year.”

The committee will provide more information about Silver City Day 2018 as the planning progresses. The event is slated from May 9 to May 13, and information will be available at www.silvercitydays.com or the event’s Facebook page.

“We deliberated four different layouts, all of which had pros and cons,” said Santori. “We feel very confident with our decision and we look forward to the 2018 festival.”

City council gave BOAZ Enterprises, owners of the former Crown Point Hotel, the green light for a traffic pattern change after the company purchased about three-quarters of the vacant Esplanade lots.

For many years, Spokane Street and those adjacent lots housed much of the Silver City Days midway. But the section will be permanently closed and converted to private parking as renovations in the new “Crown Columbia All-Suite Boutique Hotel” progress.



Sheri Regnier

About the Author: Sheri Regnier

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