COCHRANE— The ‘Griffin’ barn revival is well underway.
No, it is not the name of some obscure local band, it is Norberg Developments' latest project in town— And it’s a doozy.
In addition to restoring the historic barn just off Griffin Road, near the Spray Lakes Sawmills Family Sports Centre, the company intends to build a commercial park on the last 7.8 acres of the Griffin family property, which once spanned 252 acres.
“[The barn] was actually in very good shape considering it’s over 110-years-old,” said Henri Kooperberg, president of Norberg Developments.
The Town of Cochrane Heritage Register dates the building back to 1907 based on the date stamped on the hinges, making it approximately 114-years-old.
The Griffins purchased the farm in 1949. The building was used chiefly for livestock, and Kooperberg suggests that at one point it must have been a milking barn given the presence of troughs and numbered stalls. Before the Griffins, two other families are reported to have homesteaded there.
Norberg Developments purchased the property in 2018 and intends to make the barn into an event space with an annex built behind it, opening it up for small weddings, graduations and the like. The annex will serve as the main entrance with washrooms and other facilities and will provide a connection to the new commercial space.
“It had been up for sale for a long time. I was always puzzled why it didn’t sell as quick as I think it should have,” said Kooperberg. “It’s a prime location in my eyes, and it’s also a major artery that is part of the roundabout that is primarily used for that property.”
Kooperberg confessed that the barn was an afterthought and while in initial negotiations with the Town of Cochrane, the Town proposed it be kept as a landmark.
“In order to keep it, we would have to move it into a more prominent spot approximately three to four meters higher than it was in the first place and more prominent in the sense that it is facing Griffin Road,” Kooperberg said.
“Of course, by moving it, we had to abide by all the new building codes, and make it useable for whoever is going to move in,” he added.
The existing brick had to be removed from the barn to elevate the building, boosting it as a landmark. The decision was made to re-lay the brick due in part to its structural importance in upholding the wooden section of the building, and also because it was originally manufactured in Cochrane— Adding another historical element.
Kooperberg described the process of maintaining the brick as painstaking, so they chose to add it back onto the building as a veneer, no longer having it be integral to the actual structure.
Their original budget for the project has tripled said Kooperberg, given some of the unexpected costs that have come with maintaining an important piece of history.
“Without cannibalizing everything that was done inside was also a challenge,” he said. “But one of the biggest things was the lay of the land, and the proximity to the river and all the environmental hoops we had to jump through working with the Town.”
The Bow River is not far off the property line, and in between it and the barn lies The Great Trail pathway, as well as a forested wetland area, home to many species of local flora and fauna.
Kooperberg said they are doing their due diligence to ensure environmental standards are being met as the project forges ahead.
Their vision for the property, which aligns with the Town’s, is that it may become a new hub for the area, especially given its proximity to the Spray Lakes Sawmills Family Sports Centre and the new Greystone residential development underway across the road.
As for the businesses that might be housed within the commercial park on the Griffin property, Norberg said this is still in the early stages, but they’ve received tons of interest from retail, restaurants, as well as from Cochrane Tourism for river craft rentals and tours.
There is a lot of interest being drawn from passersby as well, and Kooperberg hopes that continues.
“One of the reasons to maintain that historical value is, of course, I think the town of Cochrane does a good job of standing out and creating an identity for itself to be a western town.”
“In that grain, I think it’s important that everybody goes out of their way to maintain the feel, not just downtown where maybe there’s a one-mile strip of some historical buildings— But scattered all over town,” he said.
