Local arts organizers hope King James School is the future home of an arts hub.

The third time could be the charm for the sale of an iconic school.

After two strikeouts by previous private buyers, Calgary Arts Development and The Calgary Foundation are heading to a community and protective services committee meeting on June 29 to seek a $5-million city contribution to help purchase the 100-year–old King Edward School to transform it into an arts centre.

The partnering organizations put in a bid to purchase the vacant school in the city’s southwest from the Calgary Board of Education in 2010 in hopes of transforming the historic facility into an arts hub.

Calgary Arts Development director Reid Henry says the organizations have been zealously working for the past eight months on a duel-development process.

“It’s been a lot of work but we really believe this will be an important asset for the arts community in the city,” Henry says of the project. “This building represents a lot of things I look for in this type of facility.”

Local arts marketer Juliet Burgess says even if people aren’t directly involved in the arts community, a city prospers when it has a thriving arts culture.

“Not only would a new space like this greatly benefit the arts organizations in town,” she says, “but a thriving centre of this nature will do great things for moral and cultural involvement in Calgary in general.”

She refers to a Mayor Naheed Nenshi statement that people want to live in a city with a good ballet company, even if they don’t like the ballet. The same goes for an arts centre, says Burgess.

“People need art to heal, and who doesn’t need a little healing right now?”

The project is expected to cost about $25 million and the partners are looking for $5 million of that from the city. They won’t disclose the cost of the building, citing confidentiality.

The centre would provide a much-needed space for the arts scene, including artists, non-profit organizations and the public, and could be used for rehearsals, a visual arts and theatre space and a cultural epicentre, Henry says.

“What we’ve heard is people feel like they need stability and that is something that they don’t feel they have in the art scene currently, for various reasons,” he adds.

Henry hopes Calgarians will back up the project at the upcoming meeting when they plead their case to the committee. If it’s approved, the matter will go before council in early July.

Calgary actress and arts theatre publicist Tammy Roberts says the city has faced an affordable arts-space crunch for years.

“There is no question that Calgary’s artists and patrons need more space to flourish,” she says. “As Calgary continues to grow and evolve, there is a groundswell of fresh, new, innovative and engaging work from a spectrum of artists.”

Two previous bids in the past six years for the school have failed, primarily because they were private companies and Calgarians spoke out against the sale, though most people seem to be more supportive of keeping the school as an arts centre.

“I think this is more in line with what people want to see,” Henry says.