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In many ways, the old Edmonton Remand Centre and the west-end campus of MacEwan University could not be more different.

The former lock-up, at 97 Street and 103A Avenue, is a stark grey fortress with tiny windows, haunted by the bad memories of the thousands of people, guilty and not so guilty, who were locked up there over the years — not to mention the more than two dozen who died there.

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Drive in a straight line due west, to 156 Street, and you come to the bright orange building that has, for decades, been home to MacEwan’s fine arts and performing arts program, a building with big windows and many joyous memories of all the concerts and plays and exhibits and lively student discussions it’s hosted over the years.

But as different as the two buildings are, they have this in common: they are both symptoms of Edmonton’s “empty edifice” complex.

The remand centre has been vacant since 2013, when the province moved remanded prisoners to a larger new facility in the city’s far northwest.