Multimillion-dollar Africa centre to ‘transform’ neighbourhood
A multimillion-dollar centre to celebrate African cultures is one step closer to completion as city staff prepare to close a deal with the lead design team.
“We really wanted to create a centre that is authentic ... that is unapologetically and unmistakably African,” architect Samuel Oboh said Saturday.
The winning proposal to design Edmonton’s new Africa Centre was a collaboration among Oboh, Berlin-based architect Francis Kere, and firms AECOM and HCMA.
“It’s quite humbling ... we’re entrusted with something unique and special,” he said of the project at 132 Avenue and 127 Street in the northwest Athlone neighbourhood. “It will be a regenerative force that will transform that area.”
More than 15 teams submitted applications to design the centre, said Pascale Ladouceur, city director of facility planning and design.
“The quality of the team we were able to attract to Edmonton is really what we’re most excited about at this point,” she said.
The building ’s schematic design is slated to be complete in the fall, when the public will get the first glimpse at what the centre will look like.
“(And) how it will flow on the site and really get into the nitty-gritty details of space allocation,” Ladouceur added.
Nigerian-born Oboh, who is based in Edmonton, and Kere, originally from Burkina Faso, were chosen because their proposal best captured the city’s overall vision, she said.
The price tag, which will be determined in the city’s 2019-22 capital budget, will include 25 per cent community-raised funds. The rest will be covered jointly through city, provincial and federal funding, Ladouceur said, adding the budget and breakdown could change.
The recently opened Whitemud Equine Learning Centre riding arena used a similar model.
The city’s request for proposal budgeted $22.3 million, Oboh said.
Ladouceur said the project will take up to five years to build.
“It is both a multicultural centre and a community centre, so that touches a broad group within the city and has a neighbourhood feeling to it,” she said.
Edmontonians won’t need to travel far to celebrate their African heritage or to learn about new cultures, said Jibril Ibrahim, president of the Somali-Canadian Cultural Society of Edmonton.
“The hope is that this building will reflect African culture,” he said, emphasizing that includes 54 countries across an expansive continent.
He said the centre could go a long way to alleviate isolation that seniors in African communities experience later in life, while also providing a space for youth to learn new skills.