Minnedosa hires help to boost 55+ housing project

The Town of Minnedosa has hired a consultant to work on its planned housing project, Valley Ridge Villas, a 55+ Community, while the town looks to increase fundraising and applications.

The town hired Kyla Cottom — a Minnedosa marketer — this spring and tasked her with the creation of a website, as well as a marketing and communications plan to support the housing project, Grant Butler told the Sun in a recent interview. Minnedosa is looking to fundraise $2.5 million more for the project and reach 60 tenancy applications so that the town can start development.

“We’re trying to make the next step, because we would like to get to the point where we can actually start building relatively soon, probably in the next year or two, if we can get the funds in place,” Butler said. “We just met with her not long ago, last week, so it’s a new development for us.”

The town can approach a lending institution to fund the development once they hit the target of $3.5 million fundraised and there are enough applications received to ensure tenancy is high, Butler said.

The Valley Ridge Villas project is planned to cost more than $17 million. The development will create a 50-suite apartment building where tenants are supported by two meals a day and a cleaning service. The community has fundraised roughly $1 million for the project so far.

The project has been in the works since 2019, and recently missed a benchmark goal to have shovels in the dirt in the fall of 2025. Butler said that the housing board realized it did not have the expertise and time required for the marketing and promotion to drive buy-in.

“Our group is very busy, the majority of them are working full time, and we’re just not able to get out there to do the marketing and the strategic planning that we thought that we needed to get done,” Butler said. “So we decided that we would reach out to a professional to help us promote this project and give us some better strategies.”

Cottom told the Sun she has spent time discovering the past work on the project and is working on a rebrand, with revamped brochures, and a website. One of the main problems she identified was that there was no central source of information.

“What the group has been doing is having public consultations and public meetings where they talk about the project, but once that conversation ends … there’s nowhere to go to access the information,” Cottom said. “So I’m just making sure that they have a strong website presence where we can be consistently updating the community with the progress of the project.”

People can learn about project details such as the floor plans and building renderings, as well as the services offered, through the website at their convenience, she said.

“Right now theres no way to search for stuff like this.”

The website will also allow people beyond Minnedosa to learn about the project. Cottom plans to have the website launched this summer, and is working on the content.

Following the launch of the project, Cottom said she will continue to be involved with channels like social media to promote the project and to connect with community members who would be interested in living at Valley Life Villas or looking into it for a family member.

The information packages she puts together will also help Minnedosa apply for funding from the province Butler said.

The project plugs a gap as there are no other dedicated housing options for the 55+ senior community in Minnedosa, Butler said.

“Right now, we have housing for seniors, but we don’t have anything that is an active living slash assisted living facility, which offers a meal component and a cleaning component. So people that are needing that type of service are now having to leave Minnedosa, and they’re going to Brandon, they’re going to Winnipeg, they’re going to other communities that have those facilities. And it’s a shame that we are losing our citizens.”

People in this age demographic typically contribute a lot to communities through things like volunteering, Butler said. He added that family members are having to travel long distances to other communities to visit, whereas that could be solved by installing the Valley Life Villas in Minnedosa.

“We’ve had that stated to us a number of times,” he said.

Buter said the communities of Onanole, Sandly Lake, Erickson, and Oak River are also involved in the project.

The information that Cottom produces will help Minnedosa share information with nearby municipalities and generate interest and support as well, Butler said. The communities are fundraising from interested residents, and aiming to gain support from the provincial government through grant applications.

»cmcdowell@brandonsun.com