One of the largest construction projects in Lethbridge’s history, according to Lethbridge & District Exhibition, is on-track to begin hosting events later this spring.
Mike Warkentin, CEO of Lethbridge & District Exhibition, expects the new Agri-Food Hub & Trade Centre will help drive tourism, create local business opportunities, and highlight the region’s Agri-food industries.
“The more people we get in this space, the more people realize how different this is than anything we have in Southern Alberta,” said Warkentin.
“Some of our event spaces in this facility, I would put up against the best anywhere in the province; including the mountain parks like Banff and Jasper.”
The project, managed by Ward Bros. Construction, created nearly 400 construction jobs over two years.
“A lot of our labour is from Lethbridge, it is local, and we’re heading for 200,000 local man hours to help build this facility and that’s fantastic,” said Bill Scales, project director with Ward Bros. Construction.
The project hit a major milestone earlier this week, pouring 1,000 cubic metres of concrete in the facility’s 104,000 square foot trade halls.
This was the final major slab pour of the project, with all other areas of the building in the finishing stages.
The concrete pour is a revolutionary technique which pre-stresses the steel fibres to create a 110-millimetre-thick concrete floor as strong as a conventionally reinforced 200-millimetre-thick floor.
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“The concrete technology that we’re using in there and the huge spans available in that space, it’s something to see,” said Scales.
Through PrairiesCan, the federal government invested more than $3.5 million in the project to support things like a state-of-the-art audio-visual system and a kitchen upgrade.
Blair Grier, project manager of new construction for Lethbridge and District, has been part of this endeavour for nearly 20 years.
“I think it’ll become a true community building,” said Grier. “I will definitely be most proud of this one.”
To build this project, 225 trees were cut down from historic exhibition park land and repurposed for materials within the Agri-Food Hub & Trade Centre.
A main entryway staircase and food court will feature those trees and an old gazebo in it’s construction.
The old bleachers from the South Pavilion will also be built into the new bench structure in the building.
The current construction references the original pavilion that opened on this site in 1912 for the World Dry-Farming Congress and was the casualty of a fire in the early 1920s.
“A bit of an ode to the history and to that community that physical gathering place is our fireplace here in the lobby, but it’s a water vapour fire, so nobody is at risk of burning themselves and there’s no risk of the building going up into smoke,” said Warkentin.
“There’s little bits of the 126-year history of Lethbridge & District Exhibition sprinkled throughout the design.”
The grand opening for the agri-food hub and trade centre is expected sometime in early august.
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