May 25, 2006

Off to the races: $1B racetrack, shopping mall

SUZANNE ZWARUN

correspondent

CALGARY

The horses were being loaded into the starting gate when, as sometimes happens at a racetrack, there was a glitch and they had to be backed out again.

These horses have been cantering around the backstretch, keeping limber, for months now. Finally, they’re about to be reloaded.

Municipal District of Rocky View (MD) has given the necessary final approvals for construction of the most significant racetrack project in Canada since Woodbine opened in Toronto in 1956. And it comes with an adjoining 1.4-million-square-foot mega shopping mall.

The new track is part of a retail and entertainment centre that could eventually cost $1 billion and is being mooted as the biggest construction project in Alberta outside the oil sands.

RIDDELL KURCZABA

A rendering of the United Horsemen of Alberta horse track, which will be built in conjunction with a super-regional retail centre.

Usually a delay is bad news, says Dr. David Reid, chair of Horse Racing Alberta, the industry’s governing body.

“But in this case, every delay has been good news.”

The delay happened after an industry group called United Horsemen of Alberta (UHA) received MD approval last summer for an $80-million horse racing facility on 674 acres of land assembled just north of Calgary, east of the Queen Elizabeth II Highway near the Balzac overpass.

UHA’s racetrack project is the culmination of years of failed efforts to build a new track in Calgary.

The only one-mile racetrack in Canada west of Toronto, the complex would include a seven-eighth mile harness racing track, gaming centre, grandstand, clubhouse, stabling for 1,200 horses and backstretch facilities including dormitories, day care, cafeteria and recreational facilities.

“Next to the Rocky Mountains, this will be Alberta’s pride and joy.”

Max Gibb, UHA

In addition, Olds College and its UHA partner would develop an onsite campus, The Canadian Equine Centre of Innovation, to provide expertise in veterinarian science and other equine industry supports. Two types of facilities are planned for a 20-acre site — an education building with classrooms and an animal area for rehabilitation and training. The satellite campus is part of a $9-million expansion of the college’s equine programs, which includes construction of new facilities in Olds, as well as the racetrack facility that could cost $5 million.

Calgary architects Riddell Kurczaba, along with sports and entertainment specialists Ewing Cole Architects out of Las Vegas and Philadelphia, designed the project.

But before anyone turned turf for the opening originally expected next year, Ivanhoe Cambridge leapt into the saddle. The Montreal-based company, which already owns several major shopping centres in Calgary, proposed building a “super-regional” retail centre on 112 acres adjoining the track .

“Who could resist?” partnering up, asks UHA’s Max Gibb. He says the racetrack will be the “anchor” tenant at a destination shopping complex expected to attract 14 million people a year (versus the one to two million originally expected to be drawn by the track alone).

“Next to the Rocky Mountains, this will be Alberta’s pride and joy,” exults Gibb. And while the project officially has a price tag of $120 million, he reckons by the time everything planned for the site is built, this complex will cost around $1 billion.

“The centre of Calgary is moving north,” he says, noting that the Queen E, already the busiest road in Alberta, will see traffic increase from 44,000 to 50,000 a day once the complex opens.

Preliminary earthwork, including scraping and grading, began on the site at the end of April. Construction of a flyover, to provide access to the centre on Township Road 261 for traffic going north on the Queen E, is scheduled to be fast-tracked. The route is still at the conceptual stage and needs approval from Alberta Infrastructure and Transportation.

A second access will be provided by an upgraded Balzac interchange on Highway 566 and the Queen E.

Construction on both the racetrack and shopping mall (with 200 stores and restaurants, a movie theatre and bowling facility) will begin this fall. The track is set to open January 2008, followed by the mall in August 2008.

The Calgary Stampede, which has been home to Thoroughbred and Standardbred racing, agreed to host racing one more year in 2006. Whether that will be extended is unknown, but Dr. Reid assured the industry there are contingency plans to keep racing going until the new track is complete.

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