Prairie Sky Gondola Inc. revealed Wednesday that the Rossdale power plant is part of the company's planned route for its urban gondola.

The group is envisioning the “switch house” of the old power plant would become the main station for the gondola.

“In the back of our minds we always hoped we could put a station here and get people here but we weren’t sure of it,” said president and CEO Jeffrey Hansen-Carlson.

“Now we can say, technically, it’s very possible and well within the realm of possibilities.”

The proposed station would include dining, shopping, interpretive space and a connection to the river valley trail network.  The company anticipates traffic of 4,000 people per hour once it is up and running.

This new information comes after a six-month study into the project's technical and economic feasibility.

Part of the study was to determine whether turning the power plant into its main station with a restaurant, would be worth it.

“This is a solely private company, so the financial sustainability is very important,” Hansen-Carlson said.

While the report still needs to be submitted to city council, Hansen-Carson says the gondola is in line with the city’s goal of developing the river crossing area and connecting it to other parts of the city. Plans call for the lines running to five different stations.

“It will satisfy the urban commuters, it will activate the power plant and west rossdale, and it also puts a tourist destination right in our core and we don’t have that.”

Hansen-Carlson says the project is leading the way for what he believes will be a more common attraction among other Canadian cities.

“In North America specifically, there is about 100 urban gondolas being proposed in cities no different from Edmonton, Vancouver, Toronto, Halifax… so here in Edmonton we are on the leading edge of what’s becoming rapidly main stream infrastructure.”

The Prairie Sky Gondola idea won the Edmonton Project competition in 2018. Private investors took it on when city council voted against spending public money on the project.  

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Joey Slattery.