Education would fit in downtown

By Lethbridge Herald on September 16, 2022.

Editor:

Bob Dylan said “The times they are a changin’.”

And so they are in our downtown. I remember when hardly anyone lived downtown – it was a place to go too – to shop, to bank, to work, for entertainment, to dine or frequent a pub. Over the years all that has changed – all those services have come to us in the suburbs and the downtown area started to die. The final “coup d’etat“ came with COVID and the jobs left downtown.

Now, how do we get back a vibrant downtown? It must be more than creating neat little areas to visit. 

I suggest two things – businesses that do not need space to manufacture and institutes of learning like our Lethbridge College and University of Lethbridge. This would mean any new expansion of the college or the university must be downtown and downtown buildings repurposed for learning and student housing. 

No more expansion on their current campus and a component; say first year classes would move downtown. Can you imagine the college trades taking classes and also hands-on in renovating currently vacant buildings for student housing?

It is not too late – now is the time for the City administration to put such a plan in place. I am sure our paid administrators could come up with a plan that could entice the province and the federal government to buy into a good plan, especially if it also addressed helping train and educate our downtown homeless and despondent population.

Grant R Harrington

Lethbridge