April 17, 1998

Where do we grow from here?

The south forty's looking mighty attractive.

A sports facility task force report says current facilities are inadequate and the U of A needs new ice surfaces, playing fields, a football stadium, a gymnastics centre and more to keep pace with growing enrolment and demand. But on an already crowded campus, where will we build them?

The report recommends the U of A avoid over development on the existing campus by moving some facilities south to the U of A's research station, commonly known as "the farm," and progressively expanding sports and recreation facilities on those lands.

The Faculty of Agriculture, Forestry and Home Economics, however, has other plans. It hopes to use the same land for an agri-foods innovation park.

Dean Ian Morrison says the research station is incredibly important to his faculty and to the future of secondary industries associated with agriculture. People tend to look at the land as vacant and underutilized, he says. But nothing could be further from the truth. Much of the faculty's important livestock and crop production research is conducted on site. And about $1 million was invested in the faculty's facilities there last year, with another million added this year.

Morrison says the faculty certainly doesn't want to pick up its buildings and move outside the city. He wants to see the development of an agri-food innovations park tied to the province's growing agri-food, secondary industries on the site. "People don't fully recognize just how much our science contributes to the growing agri-food business." He says fully half of last year's royalties to the university were generated from canola research originally conducted at the station. That's about $2 million.

Mary O'Neill, MLA, St. Albert, and Dianne Storey, U of A Senate, are task force co-chairs. They acknowledge the recently released report, New Century Campus: A Vision for the Future, will spark debate about future use of the lands. O'Neill says the intention is not to relegate the Faculty of Agriculture, Forestry and Home Economics out of the picture, but to put the land to the best possible use.

Task force member Kim Mackenzie, a professional planning consultant, says anything added to the main campus will displace existing green space, parking space or existing facilities. "You're not gaining land by adding to the existing campus; you're just increasing the density."

Mackenzie says this task force only looks at recreation related requirements, "but we understand that there may be others within the university community that will face the same problems of expanding physically on the main campus."

"It's probably premature to look at the specific budgeting for a campus concept like this," he says, "but at the same time you can count on the fact that as long as a facility is required for the university's growth, it will be more cost effective to develop it on the 'new century campus' than it would be to try and do the same thing on the existing campus, all things considered."

"If you build something on the university campus, you're using land worth somewhere between $1 million and $2 million an acre, whereas, based on a displacement principle, land out there [at the research station] is considerably less valuable," says Mackenzie. At the same time, he says, people believe the U of A has an incredible, yet underutilized asset, in its land. "People are asking, 'Is the university a wise steward of its resources?'"

This land use also has important implications for the city. Some neighbors have complained about the smell of a farm within city boundaries, while others are happy to have the green space bordering their neighborhoods. If the university does develop the land, it could help justify the extension of the light rail transit to the Neil Crawford Centre. A successful bid for the 2001 world track and field championships brings other opportunities. Could one of the necessary new stadiums be built on the university's research station lands?

O'Neill says planning is important. "If you build in reaction to an immediate need, you're going to piecemeal the whole process." Instead, O'Neill and Storey suggest the land could be developed incrementally over a longer period of time, as the money to do so becomes available.

Meanwhile, the task force is looking for feedback and eventually an endorsement for the vision from administration and the Board of Governors. They're also hoping the report will serve as a catalyst for discussion about the best use of the land and planning for the future sports and recreation needs of students and staff.

However, before any decisions are made, there will be a process of negotiation, says Dean Morrison. And the Faculty of Agriculture, Forestry and Home Economics will develop a strong proposal for its continued use of the land.

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