Members of a town committee have big dreams for the Town’s post-secondary-schooling future.
The Okotoks Post-Secondary Education Committee presented its vision to Town council on March 23, outlining goals of a future campus that would house everything from research facilities, and a new library to a performing arts centre and a hotel.
June Diment with Bow Valley College made the presentation, and explained that while phase one of the project is still years away, the first step is to create the vision of a campus that will suit the needs of the future population.
“We have very limited capacity in our town, but when you look at the size and scale of population growth that’s projected, you’re looking at a population of 80,000,” she explained. “We came to the conclusion as a committee that what we needed was a campus in a separate location in a large space which combines innovation, arts, culture, and education on one side and realistically to make that financially sustainable we would want also to have commercial space. As it becomes bigger, it will increasingly become a visitor attraction.”
In terms of what the actually options for post secondary will be, Diment said the vision would continue to expand on what currently exists, with Bow Valley College offering a number of different program options through various partnerships, such as the first year Mount Royal University psychology course that can be taken at the Okotoks Bow Valley College location.
“If you could imagine that post secondary campus is perhaps a Bow Valley College secondary campus at its core, we offer a mixture of certificates and diplomas, however we’ve already started building relationships with other post-secondary institutions,” she said. “If we can build more capacity we have the capability of delivering more programs with other post secondaries just using our campus facilities. So you could be living in the foothills and you could be studying on our campus but you could be studying a program with another post-secondary.”
The vision goes far beyond just learning opportunities. Diment said by bringing in a convention centre and a hotel, it will help attract businesses into the area and spur the local economy.
“It’s about attracting external organizations to come and spend time and money in the local economy, and if you can pull together conference facilities, arts and culture facilities, research and educational facilities, then it increases the attractiveness for external parties to come here and invest here, to work here,” she said. “At the same time it provides a far more exciting vision of the future for our existing residents to participate and use these facilities.”
The committee will have to wait some time before it sees the vision come to life. A project like this would require a sizeable chunk of land, something Okotoks is short of until more land is annexed into the town.
“Our vision is very much looking to the future. We would have to find appropriate land and money to pay for that land so it's a long term vision, but it was important to share where our thinking is going,” she said. “The next step for making this come to life is engaging with industry and with local land owners and developers in the community,as well as local philanthropists. There will be a whole plan of engagement developed to start making this vision start to happen.”
Coun. Ray Watrin, who is also the chair of the committee, said he was encouraged by the presentation and said it’s good to have everyone looking in the same direction.
“I was talking to a couple of the councillors after and they were quite impressed with it,” Watrin said. “I really do see this as a vision. I may not be around to see it in my time, you have to be forward thinking and look into the future because I’ve seen so many places and the forefathers of towns and cities and all of a sudden it’s too late.”
Watrin said it may seem like it’s far down the road, but now is the perfect time to start thinking about what to do with the land that the Town is looking to acquire.
“Some of the lands I believe are going to come and be available and so now I think it’s an excellent time,” he said. “We’re still such a young community, we’re growing but we’re looking at 85,000 in 40-50 years and that would be a beautiful little college town.”
