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Building work on Jasper鈥檚 new stage is on track to be completed before the grand official opening event next Friday.
The Jim Vena Stage, named after the long-time local and retired CN vice president, has been facilitated by Tourism Jasper, with funding partners including CN Rail, other private sector donors and the Province of Alberta.
Ground was broken at the site at the end of August to install the lower half of the stage while the top half was being constructed.
Mark Fercho, chief administrative officer for Jasper, said there was a detailed plan for construction and costs for the stage, hoping to open it in the fall, but all bids for the project came in too high so the plan had to be restructured, causing a delay over the summer.
But Habitat, the maker of the top of the stage, custom-made the structure in about two-thirds of the normal time for their factory as it was designed before the bidding process.
And when organizers were told the factory shipping process would take two weeks and would have brought the structure too late for the Dark Sky Festival, CN stepped in and offered its road services: DeckX and TransX.
鈥淭he semi picked up the top part of the stage in Holland, Michigan, last week on Monday morning and made it to Jasper by Thursday night - we unloaded on Friday and began construction right away,鈥� said Fercho.
鈥淲e sent thanks to Sean Finn at CN for his awesome team that got us the steel in a short timeline.鈥�
Fercho said the stage design was a few years in the making as Doug Goss, board chairman of Tourism Jasper, 鈥渉ad a vision鈥�.
They looked at stages in other places for ideas and settled on a design for Jasper with train station elements in its look and design.
James Jackson, manager of Tourism Jasper, said he 鈥渃ouldn鈥檛 be prouder to be able to facilitate the development of a community asset like this鈥�.
The Jim Vena stage officially opens next Friday, October 18 with a concert by Jim Cuddy, supported by an opening performance by Maddie Storvold. It also marks the beginning of the Dark Sky Festival.
The event is free to the public but tickets are required.
