The heart of Sylvan Lake – its stretch of lakefront – is at the centre of a proposed reimagining of the popular lakeside town.
A three-day charrette starting on Thursday in the town will look at reviewing and potentially redeveloping the town’s waterfront. The charrette is a part of ReImagine Sylvan Lake, a group based on reviewing, reimagining and redeveloping the town’s waterfront.
Joanne Gaudet, Sylvan Lake communications officer, said it is about as extensive a community engagement as you can get.
“The lake is the jewel of our community, it is what draws people to our community, both visitors and residents,” said Gaudet. “This ReImagine Sylvan process and these three days is part of the process of reviewing, reimagining and redeveloping our waterfront.
At the centre of this is the creation of sustainable waterfront area redevelopment plan to provide the overview of the future developments.
The public input and feedback starts Thursday night, from 6 to 9 p.m., with a community design open house, inviting public comment and the suggestion of big ideas for the project. The vision and ideas will form the basis of future development concepts.
All of the events are being held at the Nexsource Centre, 4823 49th Ave., in Sylvan Lake.
“It doesn’t really matter what it is,” said Gaudet. “It can be infrastructure related, it can be business related, it can be attractions or events.”
On Friday and Saturday, there is a two-day workshop where future development concepts could be created in the “intensive” sessions, Gaudet said. Consultants will help work to refine the discussions into concepts. The workshops are by pre-registration.
Friday evening, from 7 to 9 p.m., is another open house where the results of the first day’s workshop will be presented. It’s also another opportunity for someone to come in, who couldn’t make the Thursday event, to pitch their big ideas.
On Saturday, Gaudet said they’ll delve in deeper and refine the designs and establish goals and priorities. It closes Saturday from 7 to 9 p.m. with a final open house.
“It’s a collective of everything done to that point,” said Gaudet. “We’ll have a refined development concept to present based on the previous workshops.”
At the end of it all, consultants will start to develop a feasible concept at another open house, this time on June 14 from 4 to 7 p.m.
mcrawford@reddeeradvocate.com
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