New Agri-Food Hub and Trade Centre ready for guests later this spring

Today, the massive building is nearly complete and media outlets from across southern Alberta were taken on a tour of the regions newest agriculture hub.

LETHBRIDGE, Alta. — After nearly 20 years of planning and two years of construction, tLethbridge's new Agri-Food Hub and Trade Centre at Exhibition Park is almost complete.

Exactly two years ago to the day, Jason Kenney was in Lethbridge to break ground on Ex Parks biggest undertaking.

Today, the massive building is nearly complete and media outlets from across southern Alberta were taken on a tour of southern Alberta's newest agriculture hub.

"We're weeks away now from letting public into some of the spaces and when you walk through the building you really start to get a sense for what the space is going to feel like and just how important it's going to be as a gathering space," said Mike Warkentin, CEO for Lethbridge and District Exhibition.

The 268,000 square foot Agri-Food Hub and Trade Centre will serve as a community hub and economic driver of growth for Alberta’s agriculture sector.

"The more people we get in this space, the more people realize how different this is than anything we have in southern Alberta," added Warkentin.

"Some of our event spaces in this facility I would put up against the best anywhere in the province, including the mountain parks like Banff and Jasper."

MULTIPLE MEETING AND CONFERENCE ROOMS

The building will feature an open and state of the art entrance area, a 104,000 square foot trade hall, multiple meeting and conference rooms and a dining and patio area, all complete with the latest and greatest in AV technology.

"We have zoned sound systems throughout the building," said project manager Blair Grier who’s been involved with the Agri-Food Hub and Trade Centre since 2005.

"We'll even have speakers out on this patio, all through the various public and event spaces so we can almost literally plug in a band with a mixing board into most spaces in the building."

The building will also be using re-purposed materials from the existing exhibition park pavilions as well as recycled wood and soon to be re-planted trees from the ones that were removed to make room for the hub.

"It adds to the story of the building and being able to re-purpose those things and re-plant 225 trees for the ones that were taken down," said the project director with Ward Bros. Construction, Bill Scales.

Around 120 workers have been on site every day to help get this massive project done in just two short years.

"A lot of our labour is from Lethbridge," said Scales.

"It is local and we're heading for 200,000 local man hours to help build this facility and that's fantastic."

The project cost over $70-million and is on track to be fully completed by the end of June.

While the project will be completed with in the next two months and begin hosting events this spring, a grand opening will take place later this summer.