Parks Canada and Home Hardware owner Paul Cambridge have worked out a compromise that will save Jasper gardeners a trip to Hinton to buy bedding plants this spring.

Improvements will be made to the foundation. The sides will be screened with latticework, potted plants will mark the entrance and more substantial doors will give the greenhouse a more permanent appearance.

“You’ll see the roof, but not the sides,” Cambridge said this week after reviewing a letter from Joe Polisuk, development officer for Jasper National Park.

The proposed changes must be approved by the park’s Planning and Development Advisory Committee which recommended that the temporary greenhouse be removed  by April 20 or transformed into a permanent structure.

“We’ve come a long way from when they said it had to be taken down,” said Cambridge. “It’s not 100 per cent yet, but very close.” 

Cambridge estimates that the improvements will cost around $2,000, “but that’s better than taking the building down which would eventually have destroyed the framework.”

“They are making a special provision for this because the community wants it so much,” Cambridge said, expressing gratitude for support he received. 

“I had 95 letters and 300 signatures. People here want it,” he said. 

“It saves them a trip to Hinton. This isn’t for tourists, they are welcome to come and buy plants. But there aren’t any tours of the industrial park, not yet anyway.”