Calgary’s Downtown Core Needs Less Planning and More Action!
The City of Calgary’s Planning department has authored yet another 100+ page planning document “Calgary’s Greater Downtown Plan.” While still a draft, it replaces the 2007 “Centre City Plan,” a 182-page document with hundreds of ideas on how to make downtown a better place to live, work and play.
This is the boundary of the City of Calgary’s new Greater Downtown Plan and the six neighbourhoods, seven if you include Stampede Park as separate neighbourhood.
In my opinion the greater downtown should be much broader. I should include Bridgeland, Hillhurst, Sunnyside, Inglewood, Ramsay, Mission and Sunalta. All of the neighbouring communities that area within walking distance to the core.
Note: An edited version of this blog was published by CBC Calgary titled “Revitalizing downtown Calgary: a 60-year history of over-promising and under-delivering, on April 9, 2021.
Work Play Live Is Now Live Play Work
The “Greater Downtown Plan” includes the same seven communities: Downtown Commercial Core, Chinatown, Downtown West, Eau Claire, East Village, Beltline and Stampede Park. And it continues to focused on how to make them more attractive to live, work and play, with the big difference being the need to find new uses for empty office towers, rather than accommodating new ones.
FYI: There is also a Beltline Plan, C+E Master Plan (aka Stampede Park Culture and Entertainment Plan), East Village Master Plan and the City is working on Chinatown, Eau Claire, Downtown West and Stephen Avenue Plans.
Yes, the City loves to plan! What we need is less planning and more action!
The good news is I am told an action plan is coming by the end of April and it will identify immediate projects with an ask from the City for a commitment to fund the projects.
What the City really needs a concise 3-year action plan focusing specifically on the transformation of the “Downtown Commercial Core (DCC)” from an office ghetto (40+ blocks of mostly office towers, with 25+% vacancy) to a hip place where young professionals want to live, play and yes, fill up the empty office spaces. Forget the DDC sister communities, the DCC is on life support.
FYI: The City is also heavily invested in several major Greater Downtown projects - new arena, BMO Center expansion, Stampede Station LRT redevelopment and Green Line development - to the tune of $3 billion.
The initiatives need to be based on reality. COIVD will continue to hinder any attempts to make downtown a more animated and exciting place for the rest of 2021 and perhaps beyond. The initiatives must also be based on demand. Is there demand for more residential development in the Downtown? And is there demand for more cafes, restaurants, patios, live music venues, nightclubs in the core? It is a bit of a chicken and egg, what comes first the people or the amenities.
The first step should probably be safety measures. Calgarians must perceive downtown as a safe place to be at all times of the day and week. The weekly protest marches along Stephen Avenue and at City Hall, as well as the two young girls beaten in the middle of the day at Prince’s Island Park must stop.
Also what about the plans are already in place for improvements to Glenbow, Arts Commons and Stephen Avenue. The cost for these transformations could be $750 million - not an insignificant sum. Should we just focus on these initiatives for the next five years and make sure they succeed?
The 2007 City Centre Plan included much of the same ideas and ideology as new Greater Downtown Plan. The one that I find the most interesting is Community Building; this has to be the key priority going forward for Greater Downtown, but especially the Downtown Commercial Core.
It is interesting to look back and see how the Greater Downtown neighbourhoods have evolved since 2007. We are now creating an Entertainment and Cultural District at Stampede Park and East Victoria Park.
Past Revitalization Failures
Unfortunately, the City of Calgary has a 60-year history of over promising and under delivering, when it comes to downtown revitalization.
FYI: It is not only Caglary politicians and planners who have over promised and under delivered, for the past 50+ years, the same is true in Winnipeg, Edmonton, London (ON) and most Canadian cities.
Back in the ‘60s, the big transformational idea was to create a Civic District with the addition of the W.R. Castell Library (1963), Board of Education Headquarters (1969), YWCA (1971) and Bow Valley College (1972), with the Harry Hayes Building (1978) and Rocky Mountain Court apartments (1980) added later.
A second revitalization plan was hatched in the late ‘60s - Calgary Tower (1968), Palliser Square office and retail (1970), Convention Centre/Four Seasons Hotel (1974) and Glenbow (1975). Stephen Avenue was converted into a pedestrian mall in 1968 to make the area more pedestrian friendly. In theory, it was perfect – three tourist attractions, hotel, shopping/office complex and 1,300 stall parkade.
Also in 1968, the Calgary Parking Authority was established to develop and operate city parkades and street parking to ensure adequate, affordable and accessible public parking for those coming downtown not only to work, but to shop, dine and be entertained.
All of the downtown 7th Avenue LRT stations were upgraded to make them safer, more attractive, and accessible with links to public spaces where possible just 10 years ago.
Later in the ‘70s the “big idea” for downtown revitalization was TD Square (1977) with its two office towers, shopping mall and Devonian Gardens. It was supposed to allow downtown to compete with suburban malls.
Also, 7th Avenue became a “transit only” street in preparation for the LRT which opened in 1981.
The idea was to make downtown more accessible to suburbanites to come downtown not only to work, but for shopping, dining and entertainment by transit.
The “Greater Downtown Plan” includes the same thinking regarding improved transit, including the new Green Line.
In the ‘80s, the City tried again, constructing Olympic Plaza, a new Municipal Building and the Performing Arts Centre, with the promise of bringing life to the east end of downtown by making it a festival, cultural and entertainment district.
Eau Claire Market was suppose to be a people magnet with retail, restaurants, Cineplex, IMAX and food hall. What went wrong? Isn’t this exactly what we want today? Was it ahead of its time?
In the ‘90s the City tried to foster the development of urban village in Eau Claire with Eau Claire Market, Eau Claire Y, Prince’s Island enhancements, major hotel, new residential development and new offices.
While the private sector built several office towers and 1,000s of new homes along the river, it did nothing for the DCC as new residents prefer to wander along the river, rather than up Barclay Mall to Stephen Avenue.
Then in the ‘00s the City’s big idea for downtown revitalization was East Village, which remains a work in progress.
It is not easy to convert a “vertical office park” into a people place. Living and playing in the shadow of office towers is a tough sell when the neighbouring communities are more pedestrian-friendly, amenity rich and closer to the river.
Calgary’s Downtown Commercial Core is 40+ blocks of mainly office towers that dwarf pedestrians and cast shadows on the sidewalks almost year round in many places. (Photo credit; Peak Aerials)
Or would you like to live along or near the Bow or Elbow Rivers with their walking pathways and parks.
Or would you prefer to live in the Beltline and have 17th Ave SW as your urban playground. Or Mission and have 4th St SW as your playground.
Or, perhaps you would prefer to live in East Village or Bridgeland and have St. Patricks Island as your urban playground.
Or perhaps you would prefer to live in Hillhurst / Sunnyside with its more bohemian sense of place and two main streets.
Or, maybe Downtown West fits better with your idea of urban living.
Downtown is great place to live
It might surprise some that 8,683 (2019 census) people live in DCC, making it second only to the 25,129 people living in Beltline (a larger geographic area) of the “Greater Downtown” communities.
The current buzz planning jargon is “complete communities” i.e. good community design allows residents to meet their basic needs within their community. It might surprise some that DCC is a “complete community.”
People living in the downtown core have excellent access to medical, health, transit, cultural and recreational amenities, as well as a diversity of restaurants, pubs, clubs and shops nearby. And, it has green spaces, parks, pathways and a pedestrian street within walking distance.
It has daycares, but no schools. However, having schools nearby may not be as important in DCC as most Calgary parents with school age children don’t want to want to live in highrise towers.
FYI: 100% of the homes in the downtown core are in towers.
Some would argue it needs a grocery store. In fact, it has Kay’s Food Market and depending where you live, it is a short walk to Superstore, two Safeway stores, Calgary Co-op, Sunterra and Urban Fare.
In fact, if you created a checklist of what makes for a great downtown, Calgary’s would check off all the boxes.
Calgary’s Downtown Commercial Core has a Walk score of 91, Transit score of 87 and Bike score of 84.
Barclay Mall (aka 3rd St SW) was designed 30+ years ago as pedestrian-friendly link from Stephen Avenue to the Bow River and Princess Island. It functions much like a “woonerf” street (a street with no curb, that is design so pedestrians and vehicles can share the space) that has become so trendy with urban planners these days.
Olympic Plaza is a popular people place when it is programmed with things to see and do.
Devonian Gardens is an attractive place meet friends or a quiet place to sit and relax, especially in the winter.
The Glenbow’s Free First Thursday Nights are fun. Downtown needs more of this.
Downtown has many places with enhanced pedestrian features like this one where you can sit and enjoy the public art. Did you know there are 100+ pieces of public art in the downtown core?
In the summer Downtown’s Stephen Avenue Walk turns into one huge patio party.
How can we turn the “noon hour food courts” in the office towers into after work wine bars and beer halls?
The 1977 TD Square urban renewal project has evolved into a mega modern indoor mixed-use complex with three department stores, huge food court linked to indoor garden, three multi-floor retail malls and eight office buildings.
Last Word
Ideas are a dime a dozen, the difficulty is identifying the best ones, implementing and learning from them. The City’s focus must be on how can we make our downtown core more exciting. We need innovative, experimental, maybe even crazy ideas like converting office lobbies into people places that are open evenings and weekends.
The final “Calgary Greater Downtown Plan” must be a “call to action,” as the Downtown Core will have to compete with the Stampede Park as Calgary’s premier cultural, tourist and entertainment attraction by the late ‘20s, and it has a head start with its approved masterplan, Community Revitalization Levy funding and CMLC experience and expertise.
If you like this blog you will like these links:
Crazy Ideas for Downtown Calgary