U of L Site Selection Redux

Funny how things work sometimes. My loyal readers will recall that one of my early posts discussed the location of the University of Lethbridge, and how cool it would have been had they located the University downtown instead of across the river. I now have something to append to that post: check it out:

The other day I was sitting in the local history room at the public library, working on a kaput PC. As I was waiting for the PC to do whatever it was doing, I let my eyes wander over the book stacks immediately to my left. Suddenly a title caught my eye: Site Selection Study for the University of Lethbridge, published in 1967. Gold Mine!

As it turns out, they actually did consider building the U of L downtown, but it seems to me they went about it all wrong. I will tell you what they were proposing, and you can follow along on Exhibit A: the Little Map Above, which is a poor-quality cell phone photo, for which I do apologize. Let's just say that the source material wasn't too hot to begin with. Anyway, the plan included the following

• A 10-story student residence occupying an entire city block between 5th and 6th Street and 5th and 6th Avenue, along with 3-story academic building on 3 city blocks, running from the current site of the Public Library, west to 6th Street.
• Or...One large 10-story building annexing four city blocks smack dab in the middle of downtown, between 3rd and 5th Avenue and 5th and 7th street.
  

Now, here's the clincher: both proposals call for a massive two-story parking garage covering 6 full city blocks (see dark outline in photo). How's that for thinking ahead? Even in 1967 they were planning for 50 acres of parking. So, either proposal would require the wholesale destruction of historical buildings, and the leveling of huge areas of downtown to make room for a titanic parking garage and either one or two gigantic buildings.

Anyway, that's all I have to say about that. The document pretty much speaks for itself, and I daresay it has spoken out of turn, and must don the Document Dunce Cap. The planners did look at placing the U downtown, but to my mind they didn't do much "out of the box" thinking. Even if they had placed the University on the site currently occupied by the Lethbridge Lodge and adjacent businesses, downtown would likely have become a vital and attractive part of town. Sigh.