Text below from April 03, 2025 Castanet article
The Kelowna General Hospital Foundation has unveiled plans for the expansion of JoeAnna’s House. The house, at the corner of Royal Avenue and Abbott Street, provides short-term accommodations for families needing a place to stay while family members are in the hospital. JoeAnna’s House was built through public and private donations. It opened in the fall of 2019 with 20 rooms but the need has outgrown the current capacity.
Plans presented to city hall this week show a two-storey, 10-unit addition that would create a “seamless addition” to the existing two-storey building. Based on that objective we are proposing an addition that simply extends the form and character of the existing building so that, once complete, it should be virtually impossible to distinguish the addition from the existing building.” The extension would go east into what is now the parking lot and will eventually result in a reduction of parking stalls from 27 to 15. Three stalls would be designated for staff and three for loading and unloading of guests. “The expectation will be that not all guests are going to get a parking spot and that some will have to find their own parking,” the application stated. “The designated guest stalls will be given out to guests who require them the most, high risk, pregnant women, people with mobility issues, seniors who drive back and forth to the hospital each day or long-term guests.”
The KGH Foundation is in the midst of a $5.3 million campaign to fund the expansion.