Listen to the broadcast version of this story, which aired on Kootenay Morning on July 10, 2026:
By Jaime Frederick, Local Journalism Initiative
The Kootenay Climbing Association may be one step closer to its goal of creating a new and expanded facility for indoor climbing in Nelson. On Tuesday night, Nelson City Council voted to extend the climbing association’s lease on the property at 820 Tenth Street from 10 years to a 25-year term. They also gave them the option to renew for another 25 years once the initial term is up.
The climbers have plans to develop the site for a regional indoor climbing facility, dubbed Cube 2.0, that is projected to be five times the size of the existing Cube Climbing Centre at Mary Hall on the Selkirk College Campus. Cam Shute, president of the association, says the plan all along was for the City to grant the group a lease that would allow them to build a facility that would better serve climbers throughout the West Kootenay into the future.
“We needed the security to run a business,” says Shute. “We have really good governance, a really strong board. We’ve got a 12-year track record of running a successful nonprofit in the city. And so this is just our due diligence, making sure that when this happens, it’s going to be done right, and it’s going to be there for a very long time for this community.”
The city says “the longer lease term better reflects the construction of a permanent facility on City-owned land, supports funding and financing requirements, and provides long-term certainty while preserving council’s previous direction that the first 10 years of the lease be provided at nominal rent.”
Shute explains that the climbing association, which has so far raised more than $2.7 million for the project, is currently applying for funding from the federal government to develop the proposed $15-million dollar facility. He adds that, in addition to fundraising, the group has been actively building regional support for the project.
“What we’ve spent the last eight months doing has been engaging everyone in the region,” says Shute. “This application is going into the federal government not as a City of Nelson proposal. We have support from the City of Rossland, Castlegar, the national climbing association, the provincial climbing association, Selkirk College. So it’s very much a regional piece of infrastructure. And in terms of moving the needle, getting everyone on board to make that happen, that’s where most of the energy’s gone.”
The project is currently in the final design and engineering phases, and Shute says that a date for when they might break ground is highly contingent on the group having funding in place.
For more information on Cube 2.0, visit cubeclimbing.com.
