Fort Edmonton Foundation
Posted by Vi Hughes on Jan 04, 2017
On Tuesday we heard from Janet Tryhuba (pictured), the Executive Director of the Fort Edmonton Foundation, about their expansion plans for the Fort. She gave a brief overview of how the Fort is managed, explaining that the Foundation, with two full time employees, looks after management of the foundation funds.
A separate independent non-profit group, the Fort Edmonton Management Company, run by a board of Directors, appointed by the City of Edmonton, and partially funded by City of Edmonton tax dollars, looks after the day to day running of the park. They manage around 200 employees, and about 700 volunteers. The vision for the park is to make it more of a year-round attraction, with more hotel rooms, classrooms, meeting, conference and dining facilities that can be rented year round for all kinds of functions.
They would also like to address a number of priorities that have been identified in the last few years.
Their expansion plans include a new front entry and guest services area so that the train station can be reclaimed to tell the story of the train at Fort Edmonton, a new Indigenous First Nations and Metis area that will tell their stories, an expanded 1920’s Midway and an expansion of the Hotel Selkirk. The new front entry will include space for a coffee shop. The indigenous peoples area will include buildings with space for interpretive displays, classrooms, and an amphitheater. The midway will include a roller coaster from Borden Park, a large tent for food services and stage acts, as well as a games alley and a side show alley. The space will also be available for rental in the evening.
The Hotel Selkirk will be joined by two more buildings in front, the Windsor Albion block and the Capital Theater. Behind this will be a new building for year-round use to hold a 250 seat ballroom, a multi-purpose event space and 22 more family sized hotel rooms. There will also be office space for park administration. In addition, a utility upgrade is needed. The park utilities are currently located under the main streets throughout the park, and this makes maintenance and repairs very disruptive. They will be putting in a new set of utilities located behind the existing buildings such that the old lines can then be abandoned.
The total estimated cost of these changes is 163 million dollars, with 82 million from the City of Edmonton, 35 million each from the Canadian and Alberta governments, and leaving 11 million to be raised from the community. Local Rotary groups have so far raised 350 thousand dollars towards this goal, ( Publ.: the Driving Force behind the Rotary initiative is Rtn. Jeff Polovick) and they are looking for more Rotary groups to join in this effort.
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Janet Tryhuba, Managing Director
Fort Edmonton Foundation