Alberta’s Premier and Calgary’s Mayor helped to officially open the new $160-million south campus at Bow Valley College this spring. Not long after that, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations arrived to unveil the facility’s airy aboriginal centre.
That’s also when it started to rain. Historic flooding walloped southern Alberta on June 21, including the college which has a prominent footprint in the east end of Calgary’s downtown.
Damage estimates now ring in at about $10-million, down from earlier projections of $15-million, but according to Bow Valley’s president and chief executive officer Sharon Carry, the destruction could have been worse.
“If we hadn’t flood-proofed these buildings, it would have been disastrous,” she said.
During four years of construction, the main floor of the new seven-storey, 279,000-square-foot south campus was raised about 61 centimetres off the flood plain, while the dated north campus across the street was given a similar above-ground boost. It’s part of an ambitious $255-million renovation and expansion program that continues today at one of the country’s largest comprehensive community college, which caters to 14,000 students by granting diplomas and certificates in everything from fashion design to nursing to business management.
Ms. Carry said the college is working with insurers to sort out what’s covered and by whom. Sewage backup at the underground levels caused the damage, not overland flooding, affecting storage, parking and shipping-receiving areas of the buildings.The school is also keeping the province, which provided $141.5-million in construction funds, up to date, since it is also providing disaster relief.
Retrofitting from the flood could take until the end of this year, but the school was operational within a few weeks. Consider it a small setback for a school that is helping to bring new life to the city’s downtown and meeting Alberta’s demand for workers by offering hands-on skills, not just academic degrees. Urban planners are smitten.
“I think the city is going through an exciting transition,” said Beverly Sandalack, a professor in the faculty of environmental design at the University of Calgary.
Prof. Sandalack’s university recently opened a campus at the west end of downtown, part of what she considered a postsecondary march to the heart of the financial capital where they are closer to students who need more than 9-to-5 educational opportunities. “Just a decision to locate downtown is a huge vote of confidence of the importance of the downtown core,” she said.
Click here to read the full article by Dawn Walton in the Globe and Mail.