The City of Spruce Grove will be negotiating the purchase of 8.3 acres of serviced land in the Westwind Centre area to accommodate the construction of the planned regional park and ride facility and meet future development needs in the area.

This land will be combined with five acres that is already owned by the City to create a parcel of land of 13.3 acres that will be ready for future development.

While there have been discussions and presentations made to Spruce Grove City Council regarding a possible arena project in the Westwind Centre area, the decision to purchase this land does not mean a decision about that project has been reached.

“There is still significant work to do before any decisions are made,” said David Wolanski, Interim City Manager, “but by purchasing this serviced land, we are making a big investment in the City’s future. This will allow us to proceed with the new regional park and ride facility and we will also be ready to go if City Council decides to proceed with an arena project, or other appropriate development in that area in the future.”

Currently, work is underway to examine various options for an arena project in Spruce Grove.

“We are in the process of looking at different scenarios for the arena project,” said Wolanski, “and once we have those details sorted out, we will be sharing that information with the community through a comprehensive public engagement process.”

The land purchase requirements will include a development agreement, and subdivision and redistricting approvals. Costs for the expenditure have been accounted for in the City’s Corporate Plan.

 

About the regional park and ride facility:

The City of Spruce Grove’s Transit Growth Plan includes a regional park and ride facility as part of the complete plan for transit. The park and ride facility will have 200 parking spaces adjacent to a new transit centre. Park and ride will open a completely new dimension of convenience to encourage local and regional commuters to get out of their car and take transit. Removing this number of automobile trips from the highways will take us a major step closer toward our City’s goal of reducing air emissions and traffic congestion. Design of the facility is expected to begin in 2019.