City pushing forward with sale of Bowman
By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on February 17, 2022.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com Lethbridge City Council on Tuesday tasked administration with the job of preparing and developing a request for proposal process (RFP) that contemplates the sale of the Bowman Building to private entities.Administration has been asked to report back to council by May 24 on that effort. The motion was passed by a 6-2 vote Tuesday. Councillor Jeff Carlson was absent from the meeting.
During debate, mayor Blaine Hyggen reiterated the motion was separate from a matter involving potential uses for the Bowman, one of those being a home for the Blackfoot Resources Hub, for which council recently unanimously supported the annual allocation of nearly $500,000 in federal and provincial grant monies. The Blood Tribe and Kainai Nation were successful bidders to provide hub services but a location to provide the services has not yet been determined.
“It’s important we separate these two,” Hyggen told councillor John Middleton-Hope during debate about the motion.
“The resource hub is separate. That funding has been received and as far as location, they’re two separate items,” said Hyggen.
Middleton-Hope said he isn’t supportive of the Bowman for the hub at the present time and was asking, by the motion, to send it back to administration to review potential options for the building.
“I too will support this,” said Hyggen, referring to the motion.
Deputy mayor Belinda Crowson said she was voting against the motion.
“One of the worst things you can do to a guest is say ‘come stay and visit but I can never find you a room,” Crowson said.
“I think it would be an awesome place for the Indigenous resource hub and I will not support it as something that we’re looking to sell.”
After a vote by council following the motion, council gave Treena Tallow of Reconciiation Lethbridge five minutes to speak about the Bowman as a potential home for the hub.
“We have engaged our communities and it’s taken a lot of work to get to this point,” she told council.
“We have seen the Bowman sitting there for many years and unfortunately I see the optics as being very questionable as far as why this building is going up for sale now, now that the Indigenous community has garnered interest in it. So it does not look good to the Indigenous community,” she said.
Earlier in the meeting, council received a report from Urban Revitalization Manager Andrew Malcolm with details on a proposal to utilize the Bowman Building as the site for the Blackfoot Resource Hub as an interim use while further evaluating the potential to divest the building.
The report states the Bowman has been mostly vacant since 2013. Last year, discussions were conducted between Social Community Development and Opportunity Lethbridge about a proposal to repurpose it as the hub.
On Feb. 1, council asked administration about providing more details on the due diligence that had been completed on the Bowman.
The report states that evaluation determined the Bowman to be an appropriate site for the hub “with a limited term.”
It also stated that critical planning is occurring at Civic Common and the surrounding area that, from a strategic land-banking perspective, should be considered with the timing of divestitures, and that council priorities and direction which will guide the process. The aim is to utilize for divestiture those results for the highest returns in terms of both initial financial returns and long-term contributions to community outcomes.
It also stated the Park n Ride facility as a short-term location isn’t feasible due to the time and cost to get tenant improvements completed. Follow @albeebHerald on Twitter 4
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