'You just can't': Heritage Festival not happy with planned 3-year closure of Hawrelak
The leader of Edmonton's Heritage Festival is pushing back against a city plan to close Hawrelak Park for three years for a massive rebuild.
The $65 million project was initially pitched as a 10-year-rehabilitation project, but festival executive director Jim Gibbon said the new plan is a complete construction closure starting in 2023.
"There's a fair bit of work. But all of it could be done small and piecemeal without shutting down the park. It's the shutting down the park bit that I don't get," Gibbon said Wednesday.
The city's plans include dredging the lake to improve water quality, upgrading picnic sites to make them more accessible, replacing the playground and adding lighting for security.
Crews will also renovate the pavilion, boathouse, washrooms and service yard.
Paths will be added and roads will be rebuilt and repaved and bicycle parking will be added.
The Heritage Amphitheatre will also be updated including new washrooms, lighting and a reconfigured green room. Crews will inspect the seats to see if they need to be fixed or replaced.
About 47 per cent of the work will be on underground utilities, the city's project page said.
Coun. Andrew Knack sympathized with Gibbon and other festival operators and called the park a "critical space in the heart of our city."
He added that city staff plan to tour the site with event organizers to explain, but Knack worries a lengthy closure is unavoidable.
"I don't want to see the festivals and events shut down, I'm sure our city staff don't. So if there's ways to do it, then we would have done it, but it doesn't sound like there's a way to do it, which is really too bad," he said.
BORDEN PARK WILL NOT WORK: GIBBON
Gibbon said the city is recommending he move the festival to Borden Park.
But because it's smaller and full of trees, Gibbon said they'd have to slash the amount of pavilions and people who could attend by about half.
"You can't put Heritage Fest there. You just can't."
The festival has been in Hawrelak since 1976. Gibbon said not even the deadly 1987 Black Friday tornado stopped it.
"The tornado hit the Friday with all our tents set up, destroyed everything. Saturday the city, the province and Heritage Fest got together and rebuilt the entire event and we were up and running Sunday. We did it together," Gibbon said.
Gibbon agreed the park needs work, but he worries a closure will force the festival to move permanently.
"There's a history in this city of three-year plans becoming four-year plans," he said.
He's now appealing to city leaders to rethink the closure, and he said his organization will do whatever it can to help keep Hawrelak open.
"If we can just work together with the city, we can stay in our beloved park."
Heritage Festival 2022 is planned to run as normal from July 30 to Aug. 1. About 400,000 attend the festival each year.
With files from CTV News Edmonton's Jeremy Thompson
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
'I have the will to live': N.B. woman needs double lung transplant
A New Brunswick woman suffering from sarcoidosis, a disease that limits your lung capacity, is in need of a double lung transplant.
Suter scores late goal, clinches series for Canucks
Pius Suter scored with 1:39 left and the Vancouver Canucks advanced to the second round of the NHL playoffs with a 1-0 victory over the Nashville Predators on Friday night in Game 6.
A Chinese driver is praised for helping reduce casualties in a highway collapse that killed 48
A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle across a highway and preventing more cars from tumbling down a slope after a section of the road in the country's mountainous south collapsed and killed at least 48 people.
Police officer hit by driver of fleeing vehicle in Toronto
York Regional Police say they are continuing to search for a suspect in an auto theft investigation who was captured on video running over a police officer in Toronto last month.
The kids from 'Mrs. Doubtfire are all SUPER grown up now, and we're not OK
The adorable trio of child actors from the 1993 classic comedy 'Mrs. Doubtfire,' which starred the late and great Robin Williams, are all grown up and looking back on their seminal time together.
Video shows suspect setting Toronto-area barbershop on fire
Video of a suspect lighting a Richmond Hill barbershop on fire earlier this week has been released by police.
Hulk Hogan, hurricanes and a blockbuster recording: A week in review of the Trump hush money trial
Crucial witnesses took the stand in the second week of testimony in Donald Trump's hush money trial, including a California lawyer who negotiated deals at the center of the case and a longtime adviser to the former president.
Britney Spears 'home and safe' after paramedics responded to an incident at the Chateau Marmont, source tells CNN
A source close to singer Britney Spears tells CNN that the pop star is 'home and safe' after she had a 'major fight' with her boyfriend on Wednesday night at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood.
Quebec man who threatened Trudeau, Legault online sentenced to 20 months in jail
A Quebec man who pleaded guilty to threatening Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier François Legault has been sentenced to 20 months in jail.