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Alberta Downs under new ownership

Aug 25, 2017 | 1:14 PM

After years of sitting mostly empty, Alberta Downs is set to undergo somewhat of a makeover.

The facility, which features the only one mile track in western Canada, recently came under new ownership. Local business people Kurt and Kyla Belich as well as Ross Morrison took possession last week.

The trio presented to Lacombe County council on Thursday, Morrison saying the first step is cleaning it up.

“It’s going to provide some extra jobs for some contractors in the community and we are going to try and keep all our contractors local so we can support them as much as we can,” he said.

“We are going to work pretty hard on it throughout the fall and over the winter and hopefully by next spring, it’s going to look a lot different and I think by that time it’ll be close to being operational.”

Lacombe County Reeve Paula Law added the municipality is excited about Alberta Downs doing business again soon.

“We don’t really know exactly what they have planned going forward, but they seem to be very optimistic and excited about it and we are too,” she said.

“It’s a development there that you never want to see empty. You want to see them use it to increase [local] economics, tourism and it helps everybody around here.”