Week of March 14, 2024

Broadmoor Lake Today

40 years ago (March 14, 1984)

“Could Park Get New Downtown?”

Imagine a post office, hospital, shopping mall, recreation centre with swimming pool, parks, seniors housing, live theatre, library and art gallery all clustered within a downtown core smack dab where the Real Canadian Superstore and Dairy Queen are today. Forty years ago, landowners in the area north of Baseline and east of Sherwood Drive proposed the development of a ‘village centre’ to Council. This downtown core would help to attract department stores like Woodward’s and They Bay, argued a representative from Akley Design Ltd. Although the area’s development didn’t go quite as planned, at least part of the dream came true: in addition to Superstore, other retailers, and the Aster Gardens senior living community, the area did get a post office.

30 years ago (March 17, 1994)

“Province Vows to Fill Broadmoor Lake”

Seems the County went for a different kind of downtown core. And thirty years ago, BLUP was no blip on the radar. Broadmoor Lake Urban Park – it has dropped the ‘Urban’ since then – was well underway when the province scrapped the granting program that made its development possible. Strathcona County still needed $700,000 to complete the lake. The park’s development had used up around $4 million of the grant so far. Did the lake ever get filled? In a few weeks you can ask the geese.