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Zabinski’s plan is to place a major indoor/outdoor complex of such steam baths and pools in and around the Rossdale power plant. His plan — his graduate thesis from architecture school at Dalhousie University — is a finalist in the Edmonton Urban Design Awards, which are being held Friday evening at City Hall.

At Dialog, Zabinski is already part of the team working on the new pedestrian bridge to the river valley, something that will make it far easier for Edmontonians to walk down to the new riverfront Touch the Water park and promenade planned around the old power plant.

“The valley in the winter is one of our most beautiful things and we’re so lucky to have it,” Zabinski says. “I want every Edmontonian to have a chance to get in there and see it in really unique ways.”

His obsession is the rebirth of West Rossdale with a re-imagined and redeveloped power plant acting as the catalyst.

The building has fascinated Zabinski since he was a small child. “It’s just the scale and nature of it. It’s like this beached Titanic… It’s just this long building with a bunch of stacks… I want to see that thing turned into the gem it should be.”

The city is spending $3 million to stabilize the old building, but there’s no viable plan for its redevelopment. Some have suggested it become a market, others a museum and cultural centre, and others still think it’s best seen as an urban ruins, a decaying but public monument and park.

Zabinski re-imagines the building with hot steam baths outside and inside, with a boardwalk walkway and platform running around it and through it. Some of the walls would be opened up, with much of the building being open air. The place will have its old industrial feel, with only small sections inside built to modern standards with insulation.