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An interesting read.

Highlights - not much. Honestly, the next 10 years seems pretty much status quo other than increasing the bottom line with more students. Maybe an expanded school of business on the north campus working to connect it to hub in an expanded way.




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Odd that's there is very little for South Campus in the next 10 and little mention of Clare Drake.
 
IanO said:
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So if I understand correctly, the buildings to be torn down on North Campus include Administration, Human Ecology and the small building to its north, the Industrial Design Studio, the Project Management Office, the Headhouse Pearson Lab, the house that currently houses Student Legal Services, the older building just west of the Health Sciences/Jubilee station, the tall Clinical Sciences Building, and the University Terrace building.

Architecturally, I think Administration and the building west of Health Sciences/Jubilee would be the greatest losses, although we knew that the demolition of Administration in favor of a more open quad was in the works for a long time, and I also understand why they might want to put a more 'important' hospital building right next to the LRT station. University Terrace is sort of worrying—it wouldn't be great to have a hole in the streetscape there. Do we know what the intention is?

I hope that the result of all this won't be a reduction in capacity for certain kinds of research/teaching; like Human Ecology is a terrible building, but there are offices and labs and collections there that need to be moved somewhere, and I hope that admin's plan isn't just "do more with less."
 
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On that building near the LRT, from a Keith Gerein column:
Hidden behind the Health Sciences LRT station, the Research Transition Facility — originally built as a nurses’ residence in 1946 — is also an expensive building to maintain that has been rumoured for closure for years.
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constance_chlore said:
So if I understand correctly, the buildings to be torn down on North Campus include Administration, Human Ecology and the small building to its north, the Industrial Design Studio, the Project Management Office, the Headhouse Pearson Lab, the house that currently houses Student Legal Services, the older building just west of the Health Sciences/Jubilee station, the tall Clinical Sciences Building, and the University Terrace building.
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The main intent along the 89th Avenue corridor is to develop an east/west spine in the form of an intensely landscaped/hardscaped boulevard. All of the buildings scheduled for demolition have also been deemed too expensive to maintain from an operational standpoint (I can't offer an opinion on whether there is some political expediency in there as well, although it wouldn't surprise me if there was)
 
archited said:
The main intent along the 89th Avenue corridor is to develop an east/west spine in the form of an intensely landscaped/hardscaped boulevard. All of the buildings scheduled for demolition have also been deemed too expensive to maintain from an operational standpoint (I can't offer an opinion on whether there is some political expediency in there as well, although it wouldn't surprise me if there was)
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Yeah, unfortunately our administration has been known to talk out of both sides of its mouth before. It also hasn't been the best steward of its own (or the neighborhood's) history, as shown by the ring houses debacle among other events. (Still hoping Ken can work his magic there somehow...) So I would like to think that these changes will all turn out for the best, but we won't know for a while.

Of course, this is all occurring along a background of unprecedented budget cuts from our provincial government. I can't blame our administration entirely, but I do wish they'd be straight with us.
 
I feel hasn't been the best steward is a huge understatement.

Yes and to make it worse, the only reason the current U of A administration is there is because they will not say anything critical of the provincial government.

They will not be straight with us, they are political enablers.
 
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Strategic Infrastructure Planner | University of Alberta

Exciting opportunity to help the University of Alberta shape the future of our campus spaces!

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constance_chlore said:
Yeah, unfortunately our administration has been known to talk out of both sides of its mouth before. It also hasn't been the best steward of its own (or the neighborhood's) history, as shown by the ring houses debacle among other events. (Still hoping Ken can work his magic there somehow...) So I would like to think that these changes will all turn out for the best, but we won't know for a while.

Of course, this is all occurring along a background of unprecedented budget cuts from our provincial government. I can't blame our administration entirely, but I do wish they'd be straight with us.
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I want to like Bill Flanagan as the U of A President, I really do.
Unfortunately he appears to be a huge fan of demolishing buildings regardless of historical designation.
 
U of A lost the plot on properly budgeting for O&M on their structures long before the massive UCP post secondary cuts (see: nearly $1 bil in deferred maintenance noted back in 2017). Even back then it seems the primary remedy proposed was the disposition of numerous buildings they let rot at the end of their useful life. The UCP cuts were almost a convenient excuse for them to say "welp, our hands are tied".

Surprising to read that the only buildings on north campus evaluated to be in 'poor' facility condition are CAB, Admin, some garage-like structure on 116th, and the river bank cooling plant. Particularly the fact that neither Humanities nor FAB met that criteria.
 
I had originally thought that Ken had a plan to rebuild the ring houses ceteris paribus but on a different site in the Quarters part of downtown. I was disappointed to find out that he was only intending to use the brick building material of the ring houses in an entirely new construct. I don't know if he has the material stored away someplace. All that aside, as earlier pointed out by 'O, the ring houses in their original location could have been repurposed as guest quarters for visiting faculty, dignitaries, etc. and maintained as a character piece for the university -- sometimes when you are standing in front of the forest trees get in the way of a more scope-inclusive view.
 
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