The Lethbridge Community Arts Centre will be a place where people develop community through learning, living and loving the arts. It will be a centre for the development and exhibition of emerging talent in the visual and performing arts community in Lethbridge. Through providing opportunities for artists to create and collaborate, and for the public to engage in an active and varied educational arts programming, the Lethbridge Community Arts Centre will foster the understanding, appreciation and application of the arts in the city.

The Lethbridge Community Arts Centre is intended to serve as a gathering place for the arts community in Lethbridge. It will accommodate an exhibition gallery, spaces for arts education, studios for visual and performing arts, as well as support facilities such as staff offices and a woodworking workshop. The Centre is envisioned to function seven days a week, year round with programs occurring during the day, in the evenings, and on weekends.

It's official! Construction has officially begun on Lethbridge's new Community Arts Centre. Government officials, community members, artists and arts groups gathered on July 7 to celebrate the official start to the construction on Lethbridge's Community Arts Centre. To see images of the event, click here.

Estimated Project Timelines:

Community Consultation & Design: June – December 2010
Tender: Early 2011
Construction: 2011 – 2012
Centre Opening: Spring 2013

Questions about the Community Arts Centre?  Check out our Q&A!

May 2011: Lethbridge City Council awarded the tender for construction for Lethbridge’s new Community Arts Centre to Dawson Wallace Construction Ltd. Construction on the facility will begin this summer and is anticipated to be complete in late 2012 or early 2013.

The Community Arts Centre will be located on the former IGA property downtown, just east of Galt Gardens. The facility will house programming from the aging Bowman Arts Centre, which has served Lethbridge’s arts community since the 1960s. The facility will include community accessible areas such as classrooms; artist studios; meeting rooms; a multi‐purpose community room, exhibition space and a dance studio.

It will also include music practice rooms and rehearsal spaces that will contain the University of Lethbridge’s Conservatory of Music.

September 2010:

Lethbridge City Council formally approved an agreement that includes the University of Lethbridge's Conservatory of Music in the new Community Arts Centre.  The conservatory will occupy approximately 1/3 of the shared space in the new facility, and the U of L will cover its share of operating costs as well as life cycle of the facility.  The Community Arts Centre will be a focal point of the arts in Downtown Lethbridge. Citizens will be able to enroll themselves and their children in dance, music, pottery, drawing, and painting classes. It will house a gallery for exhibiting talent from local artists and serve as a collaborative home for the arts groups currently at the Bowman.

The 30,000 sq. ft. facility will include classrooms; 3D studios for clay and sculpture; 2D studios for drawing, painting, and printmaking; a textile studio, a kiln room; a wood workshop; exhibition space; meeting rooms; a community space for theatre or music/dance rehearsals; dressing rooms; a dance studio and music practice rooms.

June/July 2010: The Community Arts Centre Steering Committee is pleased to announce that the local team of Ferrari Westwood Babits Architects in partnership with Pendergast Nyhoff Collaborative Architecture have been selected to design Lethbridge’s new Community Arts Centre. The steering committee includes members of the general public, the arts community, the City of Lethbridge and is chaired by Kim Siever, board member of the Allied Arts Council.

The inclusion of the University of Lethbridge's Conservatory of Music has been approved by the City of Lethbridge.

The Centre will replace the Bowman Arts Centre, which was converted from a school to an arts centre in 1964 and no longer meets the functional requirements of community arts groups. The project was approved by the City of Lethbridge under the 2011-2020 Capital Improvement Program. The location of the new centre will be the former IGA site in downtown Lethbridge.

The committee has now entered the design phase with the architects and will continue to oversee the design and construction process.

Jane Pendergast & Tracy Lui with Marshall Tittemore Architects were contracted to develop a functional program plan for the Community Arts Centre project. Community consultations were held in May & June of 2008, and the Functional Program Plan was presented to consultation participants, in November 2008.

To view the program facility plan please click on the link below.

View Program Facility Plan