One month into his job as St. Albert’s city manager, Patrick Draper is already pushing council to look beyond the here and now and into the future, especially when it comes to industrial development.
Patrick Draper met with the St. Albert Gazette’s editorial board Thursday morning to discuss his first month at work since starting with the city in late April. He has also taken over the economic development portfolio until the city hires its first executive director of economic development.
What’s important, Draper says, isn’t what St. Albert needs now but will need 12 to 15 years from now.
“What does St. Albert look like?” Draper said. “What’s actually there and how will St. Albert get from where we are today to there, because I think the expectations are a bit different through those various phases.”
The city needs to create a framework for what a city of 75,000 will resemble, whether it has to do with museums, libraries and ice rinks or economic development, of which Draper is a strong proponent. He has also started injecting his own views into the discussion of what council should do with the lands recently designated for industrial development west of the city, which Draper now refers to as the ‘employment lands.’ Beyond simply saying there will be industrial land, St. Albert needs to find a niche or theme on which it can sell potential investors.
“We need to have a competitive advantage. We are a more expensive community in terms of land costs and taxes for the business community so to just go out and say we have all this land — who wants to build another warehouse or distribution centre? The economics don’t favour St. Albert,” Draper said.
Instead Draper has his eye on innovation, research and high-tech for the new lands. Specifically he is looking at the high Arctic and how St. Albert might be able to develop a campus-like setting, incorporating business, research, academia and government.
“Most people acknowledge the Arctic will be developed in the next 50 years,” Draper said. “The Capital region is unique in that it is the most northern-developed centre before you get to the north and the challenges in the north are access, transportation and climate.”
The campus could feature facilities to test clothing and electrical and drilling components in Arctic-like conditions, Draper said, or bring together other businesses and academics to create a centre of excellence.
“Why not have everyone in the same centre together in an environment that proposes collaboration? Then engage the Northwest Territories and the Yukon in the process without always having to go up there all the time. They might feel a bit removed, so bring everyone together in a place that allows that kind of collaboration. So we will work on a theme like that.”
Getting the first building up in the ‘employment lands’ will be the first challenge, Draper said, which is part of the reason the city will not engage in the business of land development. Right now, the demand for that particular kind of land is small and the expense is too high. Once the community has been able to drum up some interest in the area and the demand increases, the council of the day might want to proceed differently.
“There will come a point where we might be able to recommend to council that we have generated enough interest that to really get this thing going, now is the time to make this investment. But you’d do that at a time when your confidence level is high, when you do have some buyers starting to line up.”
