Athabasca University and the City of St. Albert have been exploring a partnership to acquire office space together, according to documents provided to the St. Albert Gazette.
An expression of interest, issued Sept. 30, 2015, said the city has “entered into a strategic partnership arrangement with Athabasca University which also requires office space, for the spring of 2020.”
The news was first revealed on a popular Alberta politics blog.
Representatives from the City of St. Alberta and Athabasca University indicated there is nothing to formally announce yet. Athabasca University previously had based its business faculty in the Grandin mall office tower, but announced a departure from St. Albert in late 2014. The Athabasca-based distance university has satellite campuses in the Edmonton region and in Calgary.
“We’re disappointed that a confidential EOI (expression of interest) has leaked, and we’ll be having no further comments until there’s something to announce and we don’t know when that will be,” said John O’Brien, the director of communications for Athabasca University.
Mayor Nolan Crouse said he couldn’t comment due to legal reasons, but administration was able to provide a brief interview.
“What we can tell you is we’ve struck up a pretty solid relationship with Athabasca University from the economic development perspective. We tried hard to keep them here when they were looking at leaving, and we sort of maintained that relationship, kind of a working relationship, past that time, and hoping to recruit them back into the city. It’s normal practice for us with any business,” said Monique St. Louis, director of Build St. Albert.
The expression of interest notes the city would prefer the facility be located downtown, South Riel or the Employment Lands.
The document said the city is looking for 40,000 additional square feet of office space by spring 2020, with room to grow, while the university is looking for at least 50,000 square feet to consolidate its Edmonton-area operations in one location.
The expression of interest notes more parties could be part of the arrangement. The expression of interest is listed as non-binding.
The documents included a Sept. 14 letter from the mayor to Marg Mrazek, the interim chair of the board of governors at the university and a St. Albert resident. The letter informs Mrazek of a motion passed by council to authorize administration “to issue the attached “Expression of Interest” to the marketplace as a preliminary process to receive potential solutions to obtain new civic space to meet the city’s long term civic space needs, subject to partner’s consent.”
The letter said it provides city “staff with the authority they require to continue working in collaboration with Athabasca University staff.”
The motion matches the wording of one passed after an in-camera session during the Aug. 24, 2015 council meeting. The minutes of the meeting show Crouse, councillors Wes Brodhead, Cathy Heron and Tim Osborne voted in favour while councillors Sheena Hughes, Cam MacKay and Bob Russell voted against the motion.
Brodhead, Heron, MacKay and Hughes were all reached on Tuesday afternoon. All said they were unable to comment on the motion.
A Sept. 18 letter from Mrazek to Crouse said she would advise Crouse once the board of governors had made a decision.
Mrazek did not return calls from the Gazette for comment on this story by deadline.
Bob Barnetson, a professor of labour relations at Athabasca University, said he’s concerned that over time the university is shifting out of the town of Athabasca, where it is a major employer and economic driver.
“The other piece that I heard just recently is the university is looking for a new president, and at the January board meeting of the university, one of the discussions was basing the president out of the Edmonton area instead of basing them out of Athabasca,” Barnetson said. He added the message to the Athabasca community has been that the university will stay put.
He wondered if a building in St. Albert is the best solution for the university and questioned the potential impact on St. Albert’s taxes.
“The question I have for St. Albert taxpayers is do they really want to be on the hook or possibly subsidizing a university, and maybe they do, right, but if I was a taxpayer that’d be a question I’d have of my councillors,” Barnetson said.
Dougal MacDonald, co-chair of Canadian Union of Public Employees local 3911, which represents markers, tutors, academic experts and lab instructors at Athabasca University, also worried that the talks with the City of St. Albert could signal a potential move out of Athabasca, though he acknowledged it could be as simple as looking at a relocation of a particular part of the university, like when the faculty of business was located here.
“It’s not only an issue for us, we’re not being narrow minded about it, but there are hundreds of people whose jobs directly rely on AU,” MacDonald said.
He said he finds it interesting it seems none of these talks between the City of St. Albert and Athabasca University had been publicized by the involved parties.
“It all seems to be being done quite quietly, which you know suggests that maybe there’s something there that people wouldn’t want to swallow,” MacDonald said.
