6   University of Alberta Museums Galleries

Location: Interior of Enterprise Square at 10230 – Jasper Ave., TH-F  12-6PM, SA 12-4PM

A remarkable series of changing exhibitions from the University of Alberta’s 29 museum collections, travelling exhibitions and the Edmonton visual arts community are always on display in these galleries.

History of the Hudson’s Bay Building

When the Hudson’s Bay Building opened to the public in 1939, it was the biggest retail space Edmonton had seen. More than 20,000 people passed through the glass doors of the building within two hours — nearly one-fifth of Edmonton’s total population at the time.

Over the years, the Bay mirrored the city’s growth — as the population grew, so did the space. By 1948, a third storey was added, and in the mid 1950s, a $3.25 million expansion doubled the space of the original building.

In 1967, the City of Edmonton assessed the Bay Building as its most valuable piece of property at $3,226,820. Through the years, it would undergo further renovations and additions. By 1989, the city designated the site a municipal historic resource.

Unfortunately, a waning economy and high overhead costs forced the Hudson’s Bay Company to close the doors of its landmark store in the early 1990s which was symbolic of other dwindling retail activity in the city’s downtown core. Most of the space sat empty for more than a decade. In 1997, the Bay Building partially reopened when CHUM television (then A-Channel, now Citytv) became a tenant in the southern portion of the building.

When the university was first considering the purchase of the Bay Building in 2005, it investigated alternatives such as constructing a new building on a greenfield site. However, the purchase and renovation of the Bay Building offered many advantages. Because of its downtown location, LRT linkage, large floor plate and high ceilings, the Bay Building was very suitable for the university’s space needs and could be converted for considerably less and take half the time to complete than building new.

The university received financial support from all levels of government to purchase the Bay Building because the conceived transformation gave a rare opportunity to create a downtown hub where the university could strengthen its linkages with the downtown business, arts and cultural community and meet the space shortage on campus. Such a University of Alberta presence also would accelerate technology transfer and commercialization and help revitalize the downtown core. For more information visit: http://www.enterprisesquare.ualberta.ca