Calgary: New Fun Hidden Parks And Public Spaces
One of the City’s key strategies for enticing more Calgarians to live in older, established communities is to create more small neighbourhood park spaces that make urban living so enjoyable. Over the past few years, three unique, somewhat secret spaces have been created - Bridgeland/Riverside’s “Flyover Park,” Sunnyside’s “Bow to Bluff Corridor” and Beltline’s “High Park.” These spaces are very different from the larger, more visible new urban spaces like St. Patrick’s Island Park or West Eau Claire Park.
“Flyover Park”
As the name implies “Flyover Park” is located under the 4th Avenue overpass as you enter downtown from Memorial Drive (i.e., where the cars are “flying” overhead). The park’s design was a collaboration between Grade 6 students at the local Riverside School, University of Calgary Landscape Architecture students and Stantec. This is not your typical playground.
(Note: The Alberta Children’s Hospital was also designed in consultation with children; perhaps there should be more of this.)
The colourful park includes slides, swings, shuffleboard, ping pong, ladder toss and tether ball all within a stone’s throw of Memorial Drive and Edmonton Trail. The park also has a tandem swing allowing children to swing with a parent or friend. A bamboo-like stick forest is the climbing feature. And yes, the park has accessible flooring throughout the play areas.
Perhaps the most notable feature is the white globe purple “trees” that provide lighting and a quirky sculptural quality to the park.
Flyover Park is a great example of what can happen when a community takes the leadership to make their community a better place to live. Flyover Park was the recipient of the Alberta Recreation & Parks Association Excellence Award in 2021.
Bow To Bluff Corridor
Here again, as the name implies, this narrow public space extends from the Bow River to the McHugh Bluff along the eastern edge of Calgary’s NW LRT tracks. Perhaps it should be called the “Bow to Bluff LRT Corridor.” This too was a citizen-led initiative that started in 2011 and wasn’t completed until 2022. Yes, if you want to improve your community, patience and perseverance are required.
The corridor includes a wide sidewalk (from Memorial Drive to 4th Ave NW), new trees, sound wall and artworks as well as three mini parks along the way. The Bow Landing under the LRT bridge over Memorial Drive includes a small skateboard park, community garden, swing benches (very cool), as well as picnic and ping pong tables. In many ways, this not unlike “Flyover Park.”
There is also a triangular Harvest Park at 2nd Ave NW where you will find BBQs, bocce court and large harvest table (i.e., a narrow long table where friends and family can gather to share the harvest food).
Play Park (aka contemporary playground) is at 4th Avenue NW. And, if you continue further north along the old narrow sidewalk, you eventually reach the rainbow underpass and the stairs up the bluff to Rosedale.
Again, this project animates what were small, orphaned pieces of land created when the NW LRT was constructed along 9th Street NW in 1987.
They didn’t have playgrounds like this when I was a kid.
HIGH PARK
Over the past few years, the City of Calgary’s City Center Parkade’s façade has become a canvas for the Beltline’s Urban Mural Project (BUMP), another citizen-led initiative, with three massive murals. What many Calgarians don’t know is that last summer, the top floor of the parkade was converted from parking to a rooftop public park – hence, the name HIGH PARK.
Phase one included a 200-metre boardwalk lined by a series of colour-themed parklets designed to provide spaces to sit and chat with family and friends (aka a meeting places). Each parklet is framed by a sign with a positive or provocative phrase designed to be the backdrop for photos to be shared on social media and/or used as inspiration for activities that bring people together. On my visits, I saw a fashion photo shoot, a birthday party and a wedding party taking photos. It is a definite “selfie hot spot.” It also offers unique views of the downtown to the north and city and mountains to the south and west.
Phase two, which is happening this summer includes more play stations, seesaw, stationary bikes, swings, ping pong tables, tetherball, and a stage area for concerts/performances.
Last Word
Kudos to the citizens of Bridgeland/Riverside, Sunnyside and Beltline who took the initiative to identify unused spaces in their community, redesign them and animate them in unique ways. And in the process, make living in their community more attractive. They follow in the heels of previous examples of citizen-led community improvements like Silver Springs Botanical Garden Northern Hills Fence Mural and even Nose Hill and Fish Creek Parks.
Perhaps we should all adopt the motto: Don’t ask what the City of Calgary can do to improve your community, but rather, ask what YOU can do to improve YOUR community.
If you like this blog you will like these links:
Eleven Parks That Shaped Calgary’s “Sense of Place”