In a move to merge its facilities in Edmonton, the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) is selling its satellite office building in St. Albert.
The building, located at 506B St. Albert Trail, in the Liberton Square commercial complex, has been up for sale since mid-June. It formerly housed a small business incubator, classrooms and research labs.
All three remaining tenants housed in the buildings’ incubator – Swift Media, Zenovia Electronics and the Solar Energy Society of Alberta – have now moved out to other locations in St. Albert.
“We developed a long term vision that’s basically calling for bringing a lot of our sites closer together,” said NAIT spokesperson Frank Landry.
“Right now we have operations in several sites around the capital region, including St. Albert, so we want to consolidate more on our main campus.”
Landry added the building had given NAIT limited flexibility and was underused, partly due to its distance from the main campus.
The institute was also looking to eliminate duplication of services and costs, and increase student access to the main campus.
“It’s all part of a long term approach,” he said.
The St. Albert building was first constructed in 2001 for Fairview College.
In 2004, the college merged with NAIT and the building had since been used as part of the institutes novaNAIT program – an “applied research, innovation and technology transfer department.”
Landry could not comment on who would move into the building next. The building is still for sale.
