A town square, parking garages and a longer St. Anne Street could be part of future downtown St. Albert, according to draft plans presented this week.
About 32 people attended an open house Wednesday on the downtown area redevelopment plan project. The plan aims to create a high-level guide about how the city's downtown should develop over the next 20 years.
Consultants from Urban Strategies Inc. presented three potential futures for the city. All three would involve a large town square created somewhere near St. Albert Place, one or two parking garages, apartments, and a St. Anne Street that runs behind the St. Albert Senior Citizens' Club.
Residents seem to have latched onto Plan A, notes Lynda Moffat, president of the St. Albert Chamber of Commerce, which features a town square in the current central parking lot. "You can really envision our downtown in the future looking like this."
A walkable riverfront
The three plans aim to make downtown St. Albert a more walkable, retail-friendly place, says Warren Price, project manager with Urban Strategies. "There needs to be more downtown."
Downtown has tremendous assets in the Sturgeon River and Red Willow Park Trail, Price says, but local businesses have literally turned their back on them — the storefronts face the road. Fast traffic on St. Anne Street cuts off pedestrians, he continues, and discourages drivers from stopping to shop. "It becomes this mini-freeway."
Parking lots are taking up valuable land, Price says, yet the region still doesn't have enough car space. Community groups and events such as the farmers' market are thriving, but crammed into tiny spaces and streets as well.
Plan A addresses these concerns. First, it would drop a town square, civic building, and parking garage onto the current central parking lot. Second, it would extend St. Anne Street so it runs west behind the current seniors' club before turning south to Sir Winston Churchill Ave. Townhouses, mixed-use apartments, a parking garage, and a new seniors' centre would be planned along this route.
Plan B would move the open area to Millennium Park. Plan C would put the open area between the courthouse and St. Albert Place and also extend St. Thomas Street west. All three plans would narrow St. Anne Street to allow for bigger sidewalks and on-street parking, replace the concrete median on St. Thomas Street with a strip-park, and build a foot-bridge over the Sturgeon in the same spot as the temporary one used during the International Children's Festival. Each plan also assumes the Grandin mall redevelopment goes ahead.
"Having cars move a little bit slower can be really good for retail and promote walkability," Price says. Putting stores on the bottom floors of the parking garages would make them more attractive.
Less certain at this point is the fate of landmarks such as the old RCMP building and the Royal Canadian Legion. "We're certainly not saying those things are just gone," Price says; their destinies will be worked out later.
Go Plan A, say locals
Plan A drew broad praise from many observers, Moffat notes, particularly its parking garages. "It has a character," she says, and addresses the region's urgent need for parking. "We're seeing businesses that won't locate down there because parking is such a mess."
Ivan Mayer, president of the Riel Business Park Association, was a fan of Plan B's open area in Millennium Park. "It's kind of a forgotten area," he says, and this plan proposed a large square and amphitheatre there.
He also liked the idea of a second footbridge across the Sturgeon. "We've kind of forgotten about any development on the north side at all because there is no connectivity there."
The consultants plan to present a revised plan in April, which the city will take to a public hearing around July. For details, visit www.stalbert.ca/downtown-area-development-plan.
