A ‘beautiful building for beautiful people’

Groundbreaking ceremony held for Boyle Street Community Services’ new facility in downtown Edmonton

It will be a beautiful building for beautiful people.

Located in the heart of Edmonton, Alberta, an abandoned building will be transformed into King Thunderbird Centre, a state-of-the-art, climate-resilient facility to support people experiencing poverty and homelessness in the city’s downtown core.

“When people are exhausted, when they’re hungry or they're living on the streets, the design of a facility can have a significant impact on their ability to get the services they need,” says Laurel McCalla, Boyle Street Community Services’ director of development, who’s leading the $28.5-million capital campaign.

“The intention is to create a beautiful building for beautiful people—people who are often lost, forgotten, underestimated, stigmatized,” she explains.

The groundbreaking took place on Nov. 3 at the future centre’s site in Edmonton, which is within Treaty 6 Territory and within the Métis homelands and Métis National of Alberta Region 4. Elder Cliff Cardinal, who serves on the capital campaign committee, led an Indigenous ceremony at the event.

The project is eight years in the making—but the need has been there for decades.

Since 1971, BSCS has delivered its social services out of makeshift locations. For more than 30 years, the organization’s primary space was in an abandoned banana-ripening warehouse with no windows. It was visibly crumbling, had flood damage, and was inaccessible for the people they serve.

“We've always had to work against our infrastructure, against the deficiencies of our facilities,” McCalla explains.

With the centre, BSCS will have for the first time a purpose-built space to deliver its life-changing services.

Enbridge was proud to support this BSCS capital campaign with a $500,000 Fueling Futures grant.