There will be no good news in next week’s provincial budget for replacement of the crumbling Big Hill Lodge in Cochrane, but advocates for a new local senior’s facility are encouraged by a recent visit by the seniors minister, the MLA for the area, and the Rocky View Foundation (RVF).
The number of people moving to Cochrane to be closer to their children and grandchildren is growing, which means the demand for space at facilities like a new Big Hill Lodge will grow in lockstep.
Airdrie-Cochrane MLA and provincial energy minister Peter Guthrie, minister of seniors, community and social services Jeremy Nixon, Town of Cochrane councillor Susan Flowers, Cochrane mayor Jeff Genung, and RVF executive director Carol Borschneck all toured the facility on Jan. 23.
Big Hill Lodge is a supportive living facility. Originally built in 1977, it was expanded in 1982 and now accommodates 75 seniors.
Borschneck said in conversations with people in their 60s and 70s who have moved to Cochrane in the last several years, a common theme surfaces.
“Over half of them say it’s for their grandchildren,” she said.
The lodge showed evidence of significant cracking and shifting back in 2020, making the need for a new building to house the lodge’s seniors all the more imperative.
In the two years since then (and after heavy rainfall in the early summer of 2022), the visible damage to the walls has only gotten worse.
Flowers said the seniors minister was “quite surprised” to see the state of the building.
“There’s cracks in the walls, the floors, the building is shifting so the doors don’t fit properly; it’s beyond repair, there’s not a lot we can do,” she said.
“We’ll try to patch up some of the cracks so it’ll look better, but we need a new building.”
Flowers, who is also chair of the foundation and chair of the Town of Cochrane’s seniors committee, characterized the recent meeting as positive.
She said the provincial government reps were onside with the need for a new building.
“They were quite concerned about the state of Big Hill Lodge, and supportive of getting a new one,” Flowers said.
While the window for getting funding for the Big Hill Lodge replacement included in provincial budgeting has closed for this year, (in July of last year, the foundation had been hopeful something might be done for this year’s budget) Flowers said the RVF is now working diligently toward the project being included in next year’s budget.
“We have a lot of work to do,” she said.
Work to be done by next September now includes getting a project manager in place, producing detailed architectural plans, costing, site servicing, and completing an ownership agreement for the land. That timeline may prove to be a little optimistic, given the volume of work to be done and the number of agencies and levels of government involved.
Genung said the meeting went well.
“I’m super encouraged. We’re all singing from the same song sheet, and the minister even said the need is clear.”
The mayor said the service upgrading along the Fifth Avenue site is already included in the Town’s capital budget for this year.
The Town has set aside some land for a new lodge on Fifth Avenue, adjacent to the Lions Centre.
Borschneck said the community interest and advocacy from Cochrane residents has been very helpful – but she said it needs to continue, to “keep their feet to the fire.”
She encourages residents to write to MLA Guthrie, seniors minister Nixon, and Banff-Airdrie MP Blake Richards, to advocate for funding for a new lodge as soon as possible.
