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River Walk planning takes shape
09/03/08
BY JOHNNIE BACHUSKY
Red Deer Express
City officials working on Red Deer’s ambitious River Walk dream say the plan is up to a year ahead of schedule, adding developers are already enthusiastically banging on City Hall’s door to cash in on potential business opportunities.
“We have already received proposals which we have had to put on hold because we (city) haven’t finalized the plan. I am very optimistic about this,” said City Manager Craig Curtis.
Mayor Morris Flewwelling said he has even had development proposals brought directly to himself.
“It indicates to me the community is watching - watching and saying, ‘Let’s giddy up here. Let’s get going,” said Flewwelling.
Last week, Councillor Cindy Jefferies, who chairs the city’s River Walk Canal Feasibility Committee, said the group has completed its first phase of work. The committee will forward its report to the Greater Downtown Action Committee, which is updating its 2000 plan, including the River Walk proposal for the Riverlands.
The committee’s report, say city officials, contains many similar ideas to those unveiled last June at a public meeting that featured concepts from internationally renowned B.C. urban planner Michael von Hausen. His concept plan for the Riverlands, enthusiastically embraced by city officials and the public, featured a centrepiece public gathering building called the Ark and a canal/waterway system that relies on storm water, and not water drawn from the Red Deer River. It was an idea first introduced by River Walk committee consultants to mitigate environmental concerns.
The planning process now goes back to Red Deer citizens with an open house scheduled for Oct. 8. The public will have an opportunity to review refined concept drawings for the Riverlands and for the rest of the downtown.
Following the public hearing, the overall plans for the entire downtown, including the Riverlands, will be refined again with a final proposal forwarded to city council. Members of city council are expected to vote on its adoption in December.
Curtis said if council adopts the plan detailed design work for the Riverlands River Walk project could begin in February and continue for the rest of the year. He said the city then could be in a tendering position in 2010, with construction - including the first phase of the canal - beginning the same year.
“It (plan) has come together certainly quicker and cleaner than I had thought,” said Jefferies. “I had envisioned the possibility that we would at least have a couple of ideas coming forward from the community that were further apart on the spectrum of possibilities, and not have so many similarities or common factors. I think because of all the common pieces it has come together quicker than I anticipated.”
Ken Mandrusiak, the chair of the Red Deer Chamber of Commerce’s tourism sub-committee that unveiled the ambitious canal idea a year ago for the Riverlands, said the progress of the plan has surprised and delighted him and his group, which sees the project as offering a significant economic and tourism benefit for the entire province.
“Because of what happened here in the last little while, since that consultant group came here in June from Vancouver, we are about a year ahead of where I thought we would be,” said Mandrusiak, whose group’s original canal idea was modelled after the world-famous River Walk venue in San Antonio, Texas.
“I thought we would have to go through a process where our idea would be something different from whatever came out of the downtown development plan. This thing has moved forward so quickly to where we had to go – getting the community on-side. For me that is done now.”
Mandrusiak said he and city officials are still awaiting word from provincial sources on whether funding is approved to complete further feasibility studies for the project. He said the provincial tourism ministry has already agreed to conduct an economic impact study for the Riverlands River Walk project.
“Once we get into the economic impact study it (Riverlands project) will be even more palatable because at the end of the day there should be some real economic benefit to the community,” said Mandrusiak.
Meanwhile, city hall officials and consultants say they have drawn up plans to ensure the Riverlands proposal will have minimal cost to local taxpayers.
“I think the numbers will be reasonable, and I don’t think this waterway (canal) will be excessively expensive either,” said Curtis, noting the city is planning to sell lots from the 27 acres of city-owned Riverlands property to developers.
“What I am sincerely hoping is that we can gain the majority of the development money from the sale of the sites,” said Curtis, cautioning that final detailed costs have still not been worked out.
Curtis said there will be major infrastructure costs for the Riverlands project, notably the necessity of burying the current overhead power line, which is expected to have a price tag of several million dollars.
See also Johnnie Bachusky - OPINION
jbachusky@reddeer.greatwest.ca 309-5456
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