St. Albert has seen a significant amount of aggressive campaigning over the last few years during the careful construction of a popular support base. And while that might sound like a reference to Monday night’s surprise-filled election results that saw the Conservatives form the nation’s first majority in years or the NDP’s unprecedented surge, it actually refers to the clean-tech vision for the city’s northwest put forward by Rampart Avenir and SAS Sports and Entertainment.
Like Stephen Harper and the Conservatives, the folks at Rampart Avenir can be congratulated for a fine display of methodical campaigning, however that’s where the comparisons end. Less certain is whether four years of effort will pay off or if city council will send them packing when the matter comes to a crucial vote, perhaps months in the future, if council asks the developer to put details into an area structure plan sooner than later.
The questions and skepticism about Avenir have dogged the project since its initial inception, despite all the positives from a so-called clean-tech community that would generate billions in investment for St. Albert. On paper, how can that sound like anything but a golden goose for the city? It would, we’re told, provide a testing ground for new, emerging technologies that could change how communities are conceived and built, and in the process plant the seeds of an “innovation cluster” that would become home to complementary industries in a parcel of industrial next to Avenir’s property, on lands owned by SAS.
The plan has all the greenwashing buzzwords and dangling carrots to appeal to any property tax-weary St. Albert resident or 80/20-seeking elected official. Not only would the concept single-handedly save Carrot Creek by putting, ‘non-polluting’ residential development in the area, the carrots include topics du jour from St. Albert politics like a mixed-use transit-oriented development, ‘partnerships’ with technology players like Cisco Systems and the University of Alberta’s nanotechnology institute, the promise of larger industrial lots, and a quick-fix landfill remediation that somehow would receive regulatory approval in just weeks compared to the years-long process it took for another old landfill in the area. It’s big talk for a big, big vision that project proponents have compared to Kanata, Ont. or Waterloo West.
Naturally, much of the criticism lies with the joint bid itself, given the pie-in-the-sky concept that is sports city and its privately funded five ice hockey sheets, the country’s largest fieldhouse and the 3,500-seat baseball stadium that this part of the world is so desperate for, along with a smattering of hotels and restaurants. Thanks to Servus Place, every St. Albertan can tell you hockey rinks and fieldhouses don’t make money, which raises a number of questions about the validity of the concept. If the market for a sport city ‘suddenly’ bottoms out, St. Albert is left with the Avenir portion — a 100 per cent slice of residential in an island unto itself, a case of leapfrogging the Capital Region Board likely would not allow if proposed on its own. It’s possible the innovation cluster would still proceed — Rampart says it’s made moves to buy the land — however details about the types and scope of technologies that would be tested, the nature of partnerships and specific land uses to this point have been big on talk and short on the fine print. Avenir could in fact be a great thing for St. Albert, but right now scraps of information are not satisfying the hunger for details.
Bryan Alary is an editor at the Gazette.
