Windsor Park will live forever - as the FAME Centre!

It's not quite the dancing, glamour and stardom of the 1980 film and subsequent television series Fame

But it is going to bring drama and new life to an old building in Sault Ste. Marie.

Today it was announced that Algoma University's new Fine Arts and Music Education Centre, or FAME Centre as it's been unofficially coined will also be located in what until this May was known as the Windsor Park Retirement Home, now being transformed into a student residence.

The FAME Centre will house the university's bachelor of visual arts and bachelor of music programs and it's being designed in close partnership with the Algoma Conservatory of Music.

Since the 1950s, the Windsor Park Hotel has overlooked the Sault's downtown and brought remarkable and interesting people to the neighbourhood.

Many stories and local legends centre around the iconic building.

"The Windsor Park is the grand old dame of our downtown core," said Brady Irwin, chair of Algoma University's board of governors today. "She has played host to royalty, industrialists and VIPs of all sorts during the past century."

Some say the place is haunted.

Others recount stories of royalty visiting.

And some remember its halls ringing with the sound of live music.

Those stories persisted even after the hotel was converted into a retirement home.

Then, just when it looked like the old fixture was going to settle down into life as a retirement home, its owner Lou Lukenda decided to donate it to his beloved home town university in 2005.

It was a great gift, one that thrilled the then university/ college to bits.

But the love affair went a little off-course as the building remained on the market for several years and the university's relationship with the staff at the home got a little rocky.

Meanwhile, a huge influx of students after the university gained its charter, low vacancy rates for affordable housing in the Sault and a lack of space to accommodate specialized visual art and music learning spaces left the university feeling some growing pains.

So last year, it was announced that part of the Windsor Park, which is actually three buildings in one, would be converted into student residences by September 2010.

At that time, the university said the government wouldn't let them keep it.

"To comply with federal and provincial regulatory requirements, Algoma University must either sell the building and business or convert the building to university use," said Deborah Loosemore, director of advancement and external relations, when the university announced it would be converting the retirement home to a student residence.

The Windsor Park Retirement Residence Inc. ceased operations in May after all the residents were moved into other facilities or found other arrangements.

Renovations on the residential section of the building have begun and it's going to be ready for students to move in this September, Loosemore said.

When the residential conversion was announced in January, it was specified that contracts for the ballroom would be honoured for 2010.

The eventual fate of the grand ballroom, where once a queen and crown prince sat down to lunch, was left open.

Many assumed the ballroom and other areas of the building would basically continue in their present function, but maybe just for a different crowd.

Today, however, that assumption was put to rest with the announcement that Algoma University will be working with its partners to create some custom-designed space for the arts at the Windsor Park.

What that space will eventually look like or be called has yet to be determined.

But for now, the university is referring to it as the rather generic Fine Arts and Music Education Centre, Loosemore (shown above with AU president Celia Ross) said today. Irwin described it as one of the most important things to happen downtown during the past decade and the Downtown Association welcomed it with open arms.

"I want to thank the leaders of Algoma University for your foresight," said Bill Watts, chair of the Downtown Asssociation. "I am pleased to welcome you and the students to your new home."

Watts said the downtown merchants love having young people in the core area.

"The Fine Arts and Music Education Centre on Queen Street enhances our determination to be the cultural centre of the city," he said. "The inclusion of this centre provides both an academic environment that offers professional learning opportunities and also an added attraction to our downtown neighbourhood."

Now it's all up to Brian Curran, CEO of Sault Ste. Marie PUC, supporter of the Algoma University Foundation and leader of the Essential Elements fundraising campaign.

To design and build the brand new Algoma University Fine Arts and Music Education Centre will cost about $6 million.

Of course, part of that fundraising drive may involve naming rights to the centre, said Loosemore, so what it may end up being called is anyone's guess.