The Struggle For Lincoln Park :
Things Get Political
As early as 1964, Mount Royal's administration recognized that the current campus location, and indeed any downtown location, couldn't support the future growth that they expected and hoped for. The Lincoln Park site, located in southwest Calgary on a former Royal Canadian Air Force airfield, was identified as a potential site for a new campus. Lincoln Park was viewed as desirable because it was relatively close to downtown while still being a large undeveloped parcel of land with plenty of room for the college to expand to reach its goal of 5000 students. Principal Jack Collett wrote to the provincial government in 1964 to inquire about the possibility of acquiring the Lincoln Park site. Unfortunately for the college, negotiating for Lincoln Park became very political. Disagreements with provincial and municipal governments, and complications arising from other educational institutions converged to delay the move to a new campus by eight more years.
Images of the Currie Barracks and the Royal Canadian Air Force base located adjacent to the Lincoln Park site. T340 - Terms of Reference and Other Information for Lincoln Park
Mount Royal's Perspective
By the 1960s, the downtown campus was considered overcrowded, outdated, dingy, and lacking in critical infrastructure. An institutional analysis report prepared in 1965 illustrated several areas in which the college was falling short, such as a lack of classroom space, grounds, parking, outdoor athletics spaces, and dedicated facilities for the student association. Student's frequently complained about the physical state of the college and local newspapers reported on the impact that lack of space was having on students. By the early 1970s, Mount Royal was operating out of a patchwork of 19 different buildings along and around 7th Avenue, and averaged only 46 square feet of space per enrolled student.
The decision to move out of the downtown core was not taken lightly or viewed favourably by all college leaders. Mount Royal had spent decades building community relations downtown. The Conservatory of Music, in particular, offered concerts and theatre performances that were integral to Calgary's fledgling arts and culture scene. There were serious concerns that moving to the undeveloped suburb of Lincoln Park would cost the college its reputation as a community leader and builder. Ultimately, in order to deliver on student and program needs and to accommodate future growth, Mount Royal administration decided that the college required a large parcel of land, preferably 80-100 acres, which was simply unavailable downtown.
The City of Calgary's Perspective:
From the beginning of negotiations, the City of Calgary was opposed to Mount Royal taking over the Lincoln Park site. Part of this opposition stemmed from the fact that the location was very desirable and that other competitors for the site, such as ATCO and the Calgary Stampede, were seen by the City as a better fit. However, the main source of the City's opposition was that they had a very different idea of Mount Royal's role and future growth. Despite Mount Royal's increasing enrollment numbers, City leaders wanted the college to stay downtown and remain a small community college, focused on serving upgrading adults and vocational training. This directly conflicted with Mount Royal's own view of its future, which was to expand enrollment (first to 5000 students and then up to 10,000), to take on more university transfer students, and look towards pursing degree-granting status. Additionally, the City of Calgary believed that a quality educational institution was necessary to contribute to urban renewal of the downtown core, and wanted Mount Royal to fulfill that purpose. Despite its resolve that Mount Royal remain downtown, the City of Calgary refused to secure more downtown space for the college, leaving it in limbo with neither the Lincoln Park site or adequate space to expand downtown.
Calgary Herald article from May 11, 1967. T146
Calgary Herald article from October 25, 1967. T146
Mount Royal College administration and students pushed the City of Calgary to negotiate with the provincial government to secure the Lincoln Park site. In 1965, over 140 students marched on City Hall to campaign for the new campus site. Despite strong public support for a new campus, the City of Calgary refused to engage in site negotiations, claiming they wanted to wait until the new post-secondary legislation was brought forward by the provincial government in spring 1968. Even after that, however, the City continued to resist movement on the Lincoln Park site.
Pages from the 1965 yearbook the Varshicom depicting Mount Royal students picketing City Hall. 0161-01
The Provincial Government's Perspective:
The provincial government had its own plans for adult education in Calgary that differed from the ideas proposed by Mount Royal College and the City of Calgary. The Ministry of Education had decided to create a new school in the Calgary region, called the Alberta Vocational Centre (AVC). The AVC was designed to offer a new method of delivering adult upgrading and vocational training programs. The provincial government believed that the programs offered by the AVC would dovetail nicely with the types of programs already being offered at SAIT and Mount Royal. In 1967 the Minister of Education proposed that the Lincoln Park site could be used to accommodate Mount Royal and SAIT, while the AVC could be established in Calgary's downtown. The proposal initially seemed to be tempting to all parties. The City of Calgary would get the small community college downtown that was so essential to its urban renewal plans, and the joint use of the Lincoln Park site would provide SAIT and Mount Royal 115 acres of shared land, with the expectation that the two institutions would eventually merge.
The City of Calgary ultimately rejected this proposal and refused to engage with Mount Royal in further negotiations for the Lincoln Park site. Finally in July 1968, Minister of Education Robert Reierson facilitated a meeting between Mount Royal and the City of Calgary that seemed to assuage some of the City's concerns. The tentative deal hung on the idea of definitively locating the Alberta Vocational Center downtown. Things appeared to be finally moving forward, and on July 21, 1969 the Government of Alberta sent a letter to MRU President Pentz allocating the Lincoln Park site to Mount Royal College.
Letter from Robert Clark to President Pentz confirming that Mount Royal would receive Lincoln Park for developing a new campus, July 23, 1969. T417 - Baker files Chapter 6
Resolution, however, was still not fully achieved. Partly due to a change in leadership, the City of Calgary was not satisfied that the AVC campus would materialize because a specific downtown location had not been selected. The newly-elected Mayor of Calgary, Rob Sykes, decided to use the City's power as the final approval authority for site allotments to hold up granting Mount Royal the Lincoln Park location until after the AVC campus was finalized. Mount Royal would only get Lincoln Park once the City was guaranteed it would have a replacement downtown college. Despite repeated urging from the Minister of Education, the City of Calgary continued to resist granting the final site approval and even went as far as to form a new committee to study a number of new proposed locations for Mount Royal College, essentially discrediting years worth of site research and planning undertaken by Mount Royal leaders.
In response the Mount Royal Board of Governors issued the following statement:
"In view of the substantially unchanged circumstances governing the availability and suitability of an urban renewal site, the present critical shortage of college facilities, and the expenditure of time, effort and money which has gone into the planning to date, the board of governors must question the rationality of the decision to review the location of the site at this time" December 11 1969 Harvey Bliss - Board of Governors statement
The Minister of Education met with Mount Royal's Board of Governors to set April 8, 1970 as the final deadline for the City of Calgary to submit location proposals. The result of the City's site selection committee was to recommend that both Mount Royal College and the new Alberta Vocational Centre be located in the downtown core, a decision that was declared unacceptable by the college. Finally, the provincial government stepped in to make concessions on both sides. Mount Royal would get the Lincoln Park site but enrollment was capped at 5000 students and the overall size of the site was significantly reduced from the original request. The provincial government agreed to take ownership of the old Mount Royal buildings downtown and to work with the City of Calgary to redevelop the area. The downtown community of Churchill Park, which was previously proposed by the City for the site of Mount Royal, was confirmed as the location for the Alberta Vocational Centre with a construction budget of $3.5 million. The final concession was that Mount Royal and the City would begin negotiations for Mount Royal to take over the AVC as a satellite campus, ensuring continuity in downtown educational programs and compensating Mount Royal for the reduced size of Lincoln Park. Eight years after deciding on the site, Mount Royal finally had permission to begin construction at Lincoln Park.
A list of requirements requested by the Conservatory of Music for the new campus, 1968. T432 - Music and Speech Arts
