The former Chamber of Commerce site located at 6005 50th Avenue in Lacombe has been sold by the City Council to buyer, Sam Wong. The Lacombe and District Chamber of Commerce has moved temporarily to the Lacombe County office until they find a suitable space for business. 

City of Lacombe Mayor, Grant Creasey says the change was due to the city council’s plan to revitalize underused sites. 

“The city is undertaking the removal of that existing structure that’s there now as well as the electronic sign that I understand will be relocated somewhere else in the city. We’re just moving ahead with that process now. We also saw fit to award a developer in Red Deer, one with a long-standing history of positive developments in the Central Alberta area. We look forward to welcoming them to Lacombe,” said Creasey. 

The city will be responsible for demolishing the existing building and the LED digital sign will be upgraded and moved to a different location. There will also be new right-in, and right-out turning access off Highway 12 and an access to the Lower Michener Park area established by the city.  

The rest of the project remains up to the developer. At this point in time, it is unknown what will be developed into the space. 

“It was just identified as highway commercial so it has yet to be seen what exactly will be in there. It was not necessarily in part of the request proposal to identify precise businesses that will be going in there, rather than development overall. This particular developer seemed eager to get underway. Hopefully, over the next couple of months we will find out exactly types of businesses are planning on making it a new home,” explained the Mayor. 

The city has taken efforts to work with the chamber in their relocation. At the previous site, the chamber’s tourist information centre was beginning to become under-utilized. 

“The tourism portion of the Chamber had seen a fairly dramatic decline it seemed to be the general understanding. With the use of current technology and whatnot, tourist centres were not being utilized very well for that to be on highway frontage and highway commercial property is at a bit of a premium in Lacombe so this was identified as one area where we could approve upon the current usage,” said Creasey. 

The City of Lacombe looks forward to the new development and hopes to continue improving the city for the best utilization.