Agriculture and riding facility proposed in Irvine

By Justin Seward Southern Alberta Newspapers on March 27, 2021.

Linda Kraft and Nikki Nickolson introduced the proposed indoor agriculture and riding facility in Irvine to Cypress County council on Tuesday.

The project is at the stage where an application has to be sent in by June 15 for the Community Facility Enhancement matching grant of $1 million.

“The hope for this would be to have an indoor riding facility in the Irvine area,” said Nickolson. “This is kind of our last thing on our list to do as far as applying for this grant goes.”

The Irvine Ag Society approved the usage of the land and the collaborators were looking for the gifting of the land and payment deferrals for subdivision from the county.

“We’re going into this with no money,” said Kraft. “And we’re not looking for money from the community or anywhere until this grant has been approved. We don’t want to handle that and have this go through.”

Prairie Rose Public Schools will be the main partner in programming and financing.

The project would be approximately a 100-by-250-by-18 foot multi-use facility for the indoor riding, school program.

“The demand for an Ag facility in this area is huge,” said Nickolson.

“Unfortunately, we do not have a public facility available anywhere. And on top of that with Linda’s work, now we have school programs thriving off this and we’re just finding that we really need a place to be.”

Busing has become a factor as it costs $114 round trip from Irvine School to Forsyth Ranch for the equine program.

“If we had a building closer to the school, we could eliminate that cost plus implement a whole bunch more programs. We could continue to expand the Equine Academy, the equestrian program, equine interaction therapy as well as offer this to the community for a place to be as well.”

County Coun. Robin Kurpjuweit asked if there had been conversation between the Irvine group and the Dunmore Equestrian Society, which wants to build an indoor facility as well.

“We have talked,” said Kraft. “The Dunmore project has been stemming for five, six years now. We have worked with Dunmore previously for other things.

“We’ve never been asked in regard to the indoor facility. What my goal in scope here … would be for kids to be walking over from the school. So from K-9, this would be a Prairie Rose in-school facility all day long.”

Kraft says it’s not about competing with Dunmore. “We 100 per cent feel there is a need for both.”

There are two spots east of the Irvine Sports Complex being considered.

Land usage option 1, which is adjacent to Frederick Avenue, is closer to the roadway, power and potentially water and gas. It’s further away from the rodeo grounds and would have access to the northside door for concession when events are hosted.

Option 2 is closer to the rodeo grounds, but could be further away from utilities, as well as the northside of the complex for the concession.

Both options have good parking, road access and space for pens to be built.

Survey results are limited to 40 responses until a payment is made. Of those 40 responses, 39 said yes to the facility.