Bow Valley College said Friday it is negotiating with the City of Calgary to buy Block 40, the former central library site downtown, to house a Health Care Centre of Excellence.
The college said a $5-million planning and development grant from the Government of Alberta, part of the province's 2026 budget, made the move possible, according to a news release. It is aiming to open the building to students in September 2031.
Block 40 sits across the train line from Historic City Hall. It was home to the W.R. Castell Central Library and, later, a Calgary Police Service arrest processing building. The library moved to a new downtown location in 2018, and police relocated their administrative building to the northwest in 2020.
The property has been vacant since the end of 2025, when three social service agencies had to leave because its aging infrastructure had become too costly for the city to maintain.
The site neighbours the college's South Campus. The college expects to link the buildings and use existing systems, so heating and cooling would not need to be duplicated. It plans to renovate the structures rather than demolish them, creating about 316,000 square feet for health-care education, research and innovation. Plans include simulation labs, virtual reality training suites and labs tailored to specific programs.
By the 2035-36 academic year, the college expects the expansion to let it serve roughly 11,000 full-time enrolments in health-care programs, nearly 5,300 more than it could without the added space. It also hopes to raise the number of graduates entering key health-care professions from about 750 now to 2,500 a year by 2033.
A labour market study prepared for the college by EY Canada estimates Alberta will need more than 77,000 skilled professionals across key health-care occupations between 2025 and 2033.
"This is a major step toward training more of the health care professionals Alberta needs," said Dr. Misheck Mwaba, the college's president and CEO.
Tasneem Rahim, the college's vice-president of external engagement, said the project means more health-care workers for Alberta and more opportunities for Albertans.
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