Key takeaways:
- Prairie Sky Gondola wants to hire city land and get a license to use the ‘sky ferry.’
- The historic Rossdale power factory is one stop on the offered five-station gondola way across the North Saskatchewan River.
A suggested gondola over the North Saskatchewan River from downtown Edmonton to Old Strathcona is crawling closer to reality with a new draft land agreement between the City of Edmonton and the firm launching the project.
Prairie Sky Gondola has decided to pay the city around $1.125 million yearly to rent land and a license to operate the gondola.
A Thursday report shows the firm has decided to pay $350,301 a year to rent land where 20 towers and five stations would go up if the business begins to build by June 2026.
The offered 2.5-kilometer gondola is scheduled to run from the base of the ATB tower at 100th Street and 100th Avenue downtown to Old Strathcona, just north of Whyte Avenue.
The firm has also decided to pay $774,600 yearly for the license cost to operate the gondola.
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Jeffrey Hansen-Carlson, president and CEO of Prairie Sky Gondola, said the arrangement is a crucial stage in the project.
“We are pleased,” Hansen-Carlson expressed in an interview this week. “We’re near what I define as the most major milestone in this project.” The idea was first launched in 2018.
The city’s financial and corporate services department drafted the report after the council authorized an agreed framework last February.
City managers now urge the council back the lease and license deals, which could happen as early as mid-August.
“Prairie Sky needs assurance about the availability of the land for the suggested alignment to move to the next phase of the project development,” the report states.
Source – CBC News
