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Neighbour not sad to see Valley Park Manor demolished

Seniors facility closed in 2010 attracted thieves and squatters
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Riverside Meadows residents Bill and Anita McDonald are not sad to see the long-abandoned Valley Park Manor go.

Excavators came in earlier this week and by Wednesday nothing was left but piles of debris from the former seniors home that was closed in 2010.

Bill said the empty building became a magnet for thieves and squatters over the years.

He watched from his nearby home, where he has lived since 1999, as thieves came out with wire and copper pipe stripped from the building and loaded in vehicles to presumably be sold for scrap.

“We had a pretty good view of the back and that’s when most of the stuff happened,” he said on Thursday.

One day, he walked around the fenced building with an RCMP officer and they found every door and window was secured. It didn’t stop the thieves.

“These people, they’d climb in through the roof vents and get in that way,” he said. “And these guys would back up to the door. Buddy would open it up and they’d throw in all the pipe, copper, wire and whatever and off they’d go.”

One day, the fire department came by and boarded up every window. It helped, but did not solve the problems.

McDonald said he complained to the city, MLA, Alberta Health Services (AHS) and RCMP to no avail.

“(Anita) had AHS security on speed dial,” he said.

The building at 5505 60th Ave. was also routinely used as a shelter.

“There was a lot of traffic. A lot of street people and the homeless,” he said.

With the demolition, one set of problems has been resolved. Now, neighbours wonder what’s coming next.

“Everybody’s concerned.”

The abandoned seniors home has attracted controversy for years. It was boarded up after persistent complaints from neighbours and the Riverside Meadows Community Association.

Red Deer city council also expressed its frustration that nothing seemed to be happening on the site for years and as recently as 2020.

Then-mayor Tara Veer said it was costing $100,000 a year to maintain the empty facility, estimating taxpayers would have been on the hook for more than $1 million.

AHS disputed those numbers at the time, saying after the first two years it cost only about $10,000 a year in security costs to maintain the building.

The building up for sale in 2018 and it was still on the market two years later.

In an email, AHS said demolition began last fall and “full remediation work is expected to be completed in March, weather permitting.”

“Demolition and remediation work has been supported by a $2 million rural revitalization grant. Once work is complete, the property will be put back on the market later this year.”

For some, the demolition was sad to see of a facility that had become home to more than 100 seniors and a special workplace for dozens of staff.

One woman who had worked at the Valley Park Manor for more than 30 years said she cried as she took photos of the demolition.

“It was like a second home,” she said, adding neighbourhood children often came to visit the seniors.

The Red Deer Nursing Home was closed at the same time as Valley Park Manor. That facility was demolished in 2019 and the site used for the new Crimson Villas seniors facility at 4736 30th St. that opened in 2021.



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Paul Cowley

About the Author: Paul Cowley

Paul grew up in Brampton, Ont. and began his journalism career in 1990 at the Alaska Highway News in Fort. St. John, B.C.
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