| After years of wrestling with bureaucratic red tape and accusing city administrators of stalling tactics, a new international hostel will be built in Calgary next to its existing facility in the heart of the East Village.
On July 22, city council agreed to sell a parcel of land to Hostelling International, paving the way for the construction of the larger, more modern facility the organization has been trying to build for four years.
Jim Zackowski, executive director of Hostelling International — Calgary City Centre, is excited that the new facility will finally be built. He says the group fought city hall for four years to get the facility approved, and he only got action after he went over the heads of city administrators.
"We had to take the issue beyond the administration in the city," Zackowski says. "We had to lobby politicians in the way we were being treated by (city) administration."
Earlier this year, Zackowski issued a press release accusing city administration of stalling the project. The city promised a new location somewhere within East Village, but Zackowski says they never nailed down specifics, despite his organization’s pleas.
Those accusations were never proven, but new Ald. Druh Farrell supported the hostel’s bid, and the project quickly worked its way through city hall. Zackowski credited Farrell and good timing – plans for East Village’s redevelopment are being finalized – for the project’s approval.
The new hostel will be fully owned by Hostelling International, which will free it from a lease and from the city partnership that most other East Village developments are subject to under the area’s controversial development plan.
"I think it will be an excellent addition to East Village," Farrell says. "I would hate to see (the hostel) burdened with some of the baggage that comes with the East Village partnership."
Zackowski says the new hostel will be about 20 per cent larger with about 150 beds, rather than the existing facility’s 120 – and, perhaps more importantly, it will improve the look and features of the nearly 30-year-old building.
"We will be able to offer an international hostel that is more in line with the quality that Hostelling International offers around the world," he adds.
He’s also pleased that, after staying in the East Village through its years of crumbling infrastructure and despondency, the hostel will remain in the area as it develops into a potentially thriving urban community.
"The area is not one we have been proud to be a part of," Zackowski says. "We think it will be a much better fit (in the redeveloped East Village).... It’s the type of area hostellers are used to coming into in other cities.
"I always say we are creating the tourists for the future. If we can’t give them a good experience now, it doesn’t bode well for the future." |
