Rockyford School has been reborn as a hub for the village.

The Village of Rockyford began working with Golden Hills School Division a couple of years ago to acquire the vacant school. Today the space called Prairie Ridge Park is providing a hub for recreation, education and business.

“Council felt the structure was sound enough and with the property in the middle of our community, it was an asset. We saw it as an opportunity to entice traffic into our community by providing some commercial rental space,” said Mayor Darcy Burke.

The Village took ownership in late 2017, and it has become a hub of mixed usage.

“The community has made great use of the gym in there. We have a huge pickleball league started. We rented space to the Playschool Association and taken up space and now the Wheatland Regional Corporation has moved their offices. The bottom half of the school is being very well utilized at this point,” he said.

Burke says there is room to grow.

“There’s interest from another couple of businesses, so in the very near future we hope to get some of the top floor rented out,” he said.

The downtown plaza finished its trial run this weekend and Drumheller council and the economic advisory committee will assess its success in mid-September.

Every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evening since July 13 entertainment was booked at the plaza for free, with crowds of people turning up each night for events from live music, car shows, and historic walking tours. Mayor Heather Colberg says this summer was a trial run to see whether or not it would be viable in future summers, and based on feedback so far, it looks likely to return again.

“I’d think with the success of it, it will be something we’ll figure out. I've had so many people ask to make it year-round with Easter, Thanksgiving, and at harvest,” she says.

There have been talks about whether or not to make the plaza a permanent fixture downtown, and Mayor Colberg says its too soon to start that conversation.

“If it became permanent we’d have to have a group come together to see what the most effective way to do it. After the meeting well have a really good idea of where we’re going to go from there.”

Town officials and members of the committee will meet in mid-September to assess whether to bring the event back next year and in what ways it can be improved.

On top of this, they will be debriefing with downtown businesses to see whether they saw any spin-off revenue over the last two-plus months. As well as providing evening entertainment downtown for both locals and tourists, one motive of the plaza was to spur economic spin-off for nearby business, who agreed to extend their business hours until 8 p.m. three days a week.

“When it started, I wasn’t that positive,” says NN News owner Neerja Negi, whose business operates on the corner directly adjacent from the plaza. “But in one or two weeks we saw some good changes. Everything takes time. It’s been four years we’ve been here and there was nothing special, but this year we saw some changes for good.”

Not all business owners saw benefits. Cafe Ole owner Caroline Bomford says despite being only a block away from the plaza and extending her closing hours from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., she saw maybe one or two customers in the three hours she was stayed open.

“My days are very busy, but after five we get nothing. For me, I think the issue is the lack of businesses between us and the plaza. It’s not bringing the people from plaza during the plaza hours,” she says. “I love the plaza idea, but it’s not worth it for my business.”