Calgary: Is Downtown West End the new East Village?
I know many of you will think I am crazy to say Calgary’s Downtown West End could rival East Village as a vibrant urban Village in the future but hear me out.
Downtown West is the gateway to Calgary’s City Centre by car, bike, transit or walking.
Downtown West End’s Shaw Millennium Park is home to numerous events for all ages.
Mewata Armoury is the largest heritage building in downtown Calgary. It is still used as an armoury today.
Downtown West End has excellent LRT access
Office to Residential Conversions
Many of the old office buildings ear-marked for conversion to residential as part of the City’s grand Greater Downtown Plan are east of 6th Street SW, next to Downtown West End neighbourhood. If the City’s $75 per square foot conversion incentive program is successful in converting several of these to residential it would shrink the office core from 48 blocks (Centre St to 8th St and 3rd Ave to 9th Ave) to 36 blocks (Center St to 6th St and 9th to 3rd Ave.) and essentially expanding Downtown West End’s boundary to 6th Street SW. The west boundary being 14th street which means it includes Shaw Millennium Park.
If the incentive program works, it would mean thousands of new homes in the west end of downtown as well as the new ones recently completed or in the planning stages.
While we hear a lot about Bridgeland, Beltline, East Village and Kensington’s residential developments Downtown West End seems to fly under the radar.
The two new West Village towers along 9th Avenue from 10th to 11th Streets recently added 550 new homes and set a new benchmark for high-end apartments in the community. The rooftop amenities offer great views of the downtown, mountains and river valley. Shaw Millennium Park is at your front door.
The third West Village Tower at the corner of 8th Ave and 10th Street will include 70,000 square feet of commercial space and an enhance streetscape to create a community hub with café, restaurant and perhaps an urban grocery store. It could kick start the redevelopment of 8th Ave West as pedestrian friend street. Nearby is the funky Sigla Books and Loophole Café. (rendering from NORR website)
Sigla Books
Lookhole Cafe
Big News / Big Opportunity
The big news is the Nexen Tower, which is currently empty could soon have new owners (a deal is pending).
Could this become a major residential tower with Century Gardens as its backyard and LRT station as its side yard?
Could this become an anchor for another new gathering hub in Downtown West End.
It has the potential to add 500+ new homes to the Downtown West End if converted entirely to residential.
More Amenities Than You Think
Like East Village, Downtown West End it is home to attractive public spaces and amenities like Shaw Millennium Park (skate park, basketball, volleyball courts and festivals) Contemporary Calgary art gallery, Kerby Centre and two LRT stations. It includes the recently renovated Century Gardens, a dog park and easy access to the Bow River pathway. Like East Village it has a few signature heritage buildings – Mewata Armoury and Kerby Centre former home of Mount Royal College. Also, like East Village is has numerous public artworks and murals.
It has Kay’s Food Market, Pharmasave Drug Store, two Tim Hortons, Wave’s Café, Dicken’s pub, Moxie’s and several other restaurants, pharmacies and clinics.
Century Gardens on the eastern edge of Downtown West End has the potential to become a vibrant community gathering place. (photo credit: Byran H)
DWE is home to Contemporary Calgary a public art gallery with plans for expansion. I have always thought Calgary architect Jack Long’s 1967 brutalist Centennial Planetarium where a circular dome intersecting with numerous different rectangular planes at seemingly random angles, preceded Gehry’s esteemed Guggenheim Museum in Bilboa, Spain by 30 years.
DWE is home to dozens of small shops, cafes, restaurants and other services.
DWE’s murals and public art don’t get the attention they deserve.
Unique Demographics
Downtown West End is currently home to 2,785 Calgarians (2021 City of Calgary census, up significantly from the 2,105 in 2016) and with an expanded boundary and office conversions it could easily more than triple in size by the end of the decade to rival East Village.
Downtown West End’s demographics tell a very interesting story as 17% of its residents are between the ages of 25 and 34 (twice the city average). The community is 65% Asian, with 79% of those are recent immigrants (also higher than the city average) and 58% of those living in the West End have a university degree or higher, compared to the city average of only 33%.
This young, highly educated, immigrant population is exactly what emerging tech hubs are made of.
Beach Volleyball Fun At Shaw Millennium Park
Skateboarding fun also at Shaw Millennium Park
Boardwalk a major landlord in the community has already established “Board Room” a co-workspace for the neighbourhoods entrepreneurs.
West End Campus
Downtown West End is currently home to several small colleges you have probably never heard of – Bredin, Glenbow, ERP, East West, CDI, Cambrooks, Reeves, Bow Valley West, Visual College of Art and Design - scattered throughout the ‘hood. City University has space in one the old office buildings which would be ideal for a vertical post-secondary campus and incubators spaces for entrepreneurs moving to Calgary. Could Downtown West End be ripe for the creation of a post-secondary campus akin to East Village’s Bow Valley College?
It is home to the University of Calgary’s Downtown Campus building which ironically was the result of a conversion of a medical office building to a school in 2010, with no City subsidy. The Westley a funky hotel (part of the Tapestry Collection by Hilton), opened in 2018. It also is a converted office building with no City subsidy. The hotel’s restaurant Fonda Fora is a popular contemporary Mexican restaurant with an eclectic cocktail list.
Downtown West End has the diversity and density of buildings and public spaces to become a vibrant urban village over the next 10 years. Here is a quick photo tour.
University of Calgary Downtown Campus Building functions in the West End much like the former Castell library building in East Village. It was a former medical office building.
Westley boutique hotel is great example of an office to hotel conversion in the Downtown’s West End.
This is what Century Gardens could look like if it had the marketing and programming budgets Calgary Municipal Land Corporation has for East Village. (photo credit Paulius S)
HomeSpace Affordable Housing
Calgary Housing Corporation building
Attainable Homes has a new project in the works.
Nat Christie Sculpture Park
Pandoral Clip: Art vs Engineering
Poet Plaza’s Ascension by INCIPIO MODO.
Shaw Millennium Park can be a quiet place to read.
It can also Sunday afternoon painting spot.
Downtown West End is home to one of the most unique pieces of public art in Calgary. It is a tribute to iconic Canadian singer song writer Ian Tyson. It has the lyrics to his song “Land of Shining Mountains” hung on stone in a manner that creates playful shadows using his personal handwriting.
Last Word
Do you still think I am crazy for thinking Calgary’s Downtown West End could evolve organically to become the young, entrepreneurial urban community the City has been trying to foster in East Village since 2005?
Perhaps if it had a sexier name like “Mewata Village” Downtown West End would get more respect. Or maybe it could be branded as “DWE.”
Learn more about Downtown Calgary’s Revitalization:
East Village: A Billion Dollar Work of Art?