Athabasca University is leaving St. Albert after 20 years, and that has the city's head of economic development frustrated.
Athabasca University president Peter MacKinnon and Dean of Business Deborah Hurst told the Gazette Thursday during an editorial board meeting that they would be moving their operations to Edmonton from St. Albert this January.
The university's Faculty of Business has been based out of the third floor of the Grandin mall office tower since the faculty formed in 1994. It currently has about 20,000 students, almost all of which take courses online.
The program has outgrown its current 12,000-square-foot location and needs a 15,000 square foot one, Hurst said.
The university examined about 11 sites in the St. Albert and northern Edmonton region, accounting for cost, visibility, and future needs, MacKinnon said. They recently settled on the Trail Business Centre on St. Albert Trail, which contains Yvonne's Furniture and is across the street from the Co-Op gas station.
Hurst cited rent, space, and the demolition process at Grandin mall as reasons why the university decided to leave St. Albert.
Visibility was also a huge factor.
"If you've lived here all your life and didn't know we were there (in the tower) for 20 years, what does that tell you?" she said. This new site allows the university to get noticed by traffic moving to and from Edmonton every day.
"It was a difficult decision, but as we said, it was a business decision," Hurst said.
City frustrated
Athabasca University opened in 1970. Originally slated to have its main campus in St. Albert, it switched to being a distance-learning institution in 1971. It now has offices in Edmonton, Calgary and Athabasca.
Guy Boston, St. Albert's executive director of economic development, said he has a thick file on Athabasca University from the city's three years of work to find a place for them in town.
"We have worked extensively with them on a number of options. We've hooked them up with potential investors and people who wanted to build buildings.
"We have found it a bit frustrating in that aspect."
Boston said that St. Albert did not have any 15,000-square-foot blocks of office space available for the university – most of this city's spaces are 5,000 square feet or less. The St. Albert Crossing building by Socrates Restaurant could house them, but it isn't finished yet.
Mayor Nolan Crouse said the city had also tried to broker deals with developers such as Avenir to make space for Athabasca.
"There was no developer that was going to be able to pull off a building that worked for them."
This lack of office space is a barrier to growth in St. Albert, said St. Albert Chamber of Commerce president Lynda Moffat. While the new employment lands would be a great fit for Athabasca University, those lands are not yet serviced.
"It just seems to be the same old problem: we want to attract the finest here but we've got no place for them when they want to come."
Boston said the city was still working with Athabasca to draw them back to town.
"We don't see them as gone forever."
Hurst said the faculty had started moving its servers and culling its files in preparation for next month's move. About 60 staff members, many of whom live in St. Albert, would be affected. Students would not, as they take courses online.
MacKinnon said the university would have preferred to stay in St. Albert, given its strong historic ties to the community.
"We don't regard this as a move from St. Albert in a definitive or permanent sense," he said. He noted that the university was looking to consolidate its operations, and could do so in St. Albert if it could find a 30,000-square-foot location here.
St. Albert needs to follow the lead of cities such as Edmonton and get into the land development, Moffat said.
"Be the landowner and get servicing into these areas so we can attract businesses in and get our money back," she said.
"If you can't service the land and have it available, what's the use of trying to attract business here?"
