The mix is right in Rocky View
Commercial and industrial development complement rural lifestyle and spectacular scenery
By Paul Marck / Photography by Bookstrucker
If you build it, they will come.
In the Municipal District of Rocky View, that maxim could not be truer: When the $495-million CrossIron Mills retail complex opened last summer just north of Calgary, they came alright. Shoppers and tourists, all with an appetite to spend, 250,000 of them in the first five days that CrossIron opened and 4.5 million to date.
CrossIron Mills, with its 200 stores, restaurants, entertainment venues and outlets, has proven to be one of the most successful launches of a large retail centre in the country.
And no wonder, given its location on the QEII, if not the yellow-brick road, at least Alberta's black gold highway. The QEII corridor between Calgary and Edmonton is the fourth-largest economic region in Canada. CrossIron Mills draws from a metro area of 1.4 million, and is only an hour's drive from Red Deer to the north and a couple of hours from Lethbridge and Medicine Hat in the south.
Ivanhoe Cambridge, which developed CrossIron Mills, certainly believes Rocky View was the right choice for location. John Scott, Ivanhoe Cambridge's vice-president of development, said the company established criteria to build beside the QEII between Calgary and Edmonton. The retail concept required superior regional access to draw customers from great distances. Beyond location, Ivanhoe Cambridge needed a significant land area and Rocky View provided that opportunity, Scott said.
"Developing a project of this scale is a major undertaking and Rocky View County was very open to working with us to bring it to a successful conclusion," says Scott. "It was a five-year process from start to finish and we were very fortunate that Rocky View County was prepared to work with us as a team."
If everything at CrossIron Mills comes into play, it will also eventually be home to a $200-million race track and casino, and quarters for a revived horse industry. These complement the Titan Entertainment venue in nearby Balzac, itself undergoing a development boom.
"We're very proud of it," Rocky View Reeve Lois Habberfield says of CrossIron Mills. "It is a world-class facility. It is a true anchor and will be for many years to come."
CrossIron Mills is the crowning achievement in Rocky View's coming of age, and one of the major reasons the sprawling "rurban" community that borders Calgary on three sides has been named Alberta's Best Community for Business.
But it is only part of a grand plan that will see community and industrial development occurring simultaneously – but not adjacent to each other.
"We have to do the community development strategies in the areas where we have identified potential business areas in the future along the highway corridors," says Habberfield. "We might think it's a good location, but we need some buy-in from the communities, we need support from them, because it is their community. We have to go out and do that consultation in greater detail with the communities."
Plus, the proximity to Calgary, the intersection of the TransCanada Highway with QEII, key rail links – including CN switching its main location from Calgary to Rocky View's Conridge area – means that not only is there a large market area to draw upon, there is ease of access and good transportation infrastructure.
When Brenda Moon and husband Graham decided to give up the rat race of big-city cheek-by-jowl living and rush-hour gridlock 13 years ago, they wanted a lifestyle change.
They still wanted to be close to Calgary for the amenities of city life. They looked at other surrounding communities, before deciding that Rocky View offered the best combination of lifestyle and commuting ease.
"I like the fact there are fewer lineups, it's not as congested, we have the small community atmosphere but with cosmopolitan services," says Moon. And with CrossIron Mills nearby, she finds little need to shop outside the community.
As land owners of a 40-acre horse-and-hay ranch operation, Moon said she is impressed by the municipal district's strategy that balances rural and agricultural concerns with economic development.
"What my husband and I really like about the community is how forward-looking they are. They have a growth-management strategy. We know the growth is going to come, so let's plan it."
She says the consultation process is inclusive. "The county has been really helpful with our land-use redesignation process," says Moon, who is active in the community as president of the Airdrie and District Agricultural Society. "They're protecting our interests. Quite frankly, they are fabulous."
The municipal district has agreements with its neighbouring communities like Airdrie, for sharing recreation facilities and a recycling depot.
Moon concedes that Rocky View still has some work to do on municipal services, such as providing garbage pickup – currently residents take their trash to a transfer site – but she is confident that such issues will be resolved.
However, Moon is not about to trade off what she has for what she left behind in the city. "I look out my window, I see prairie and cattle grazing, I hear geese. I see the Rocky Mountains. The coolest thing is the view. Plus, I think you get more value for your dollar here."
Habberfield agrees that Rocky View's good fortunes are due to location, location, location. And good planning. "We have to get the community to understand what our thinking is, try to get that buy in. If not, we'll have to have another look at it. We think it is a good plan, it falls in line with the provincial direction that we've been told to follow and the Calgary regional partnership direction. So everybody has the same thinking, we're not doing something drastically different."
Yet there is a lot more to Rocky View, where leather-chapped cowboys on horseback mix easily with luxury SUVs. There is a distinct geographic character, blending prairie and rolling hills on the doorstep of Kananaskis Country and the Eastern Slopes of the Rockies. It incorporates the community of Balzac and hamlets of Bragg Creek and Langdon – an end of line railroad village that is undergoing a residential renaissance where no fewer than eight home builders are putting up new houses. Rocky View also surrounds a number of independent heritage communities, such as Cochrane, Airdrie, Crossfield, Chestermere and Kathryn, among others.
For business, one of the more attractive features is Rocky View's diversified economy. Its heritage industry of agriculture has livestock outnumbering people, there is plenty of forage pasture and more than 1,300 farms grow wheat, oats, barley, canola and alfalfa in the rich soils of one million acres of farmland.
Alberta's resource industry also has a strong presence in Rocky View, mostly stemming from the plentiful natural gas fields of the area. Shell Canada Ltd., Nexen Inc., Atco Ltd., Nova Chemicals Corp., Suncor Energy Inc., TAQA North Ltd., TransAlta Corp. and TransCanada Corp. all have facilities.
Yet despite the growing mix of commercial and industrial development, Rocky View is classified as a rural municipality, with more than 90% of its land devoted to agriculture. That distinction is not likely to change anytime soon. Habberfield sees a future of orderly, staged development.
"We're still going to look like a rural municipality for the most part, but we will have intensification of our businesses that have been identified. So the Balzac area, rather than being partially developed, I'm sure will be built out in 20 years. Other areas will be starting, but luckily it won't be random development anymore, it will be focused in areas where we can provide servicing and do what is more environmentally sustainable and acceptable to the people of the day."
These and other factors all contributed to Rocky View's ranking as Alberta's number one Best Community for Business. Here are the main criteria that helped stake Rocky View to the top:
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