Calgary’s NE Quadrant Ripe For Transit Oriented Development
I’ve often thought the potential for urban redevelopment in Calgary’s NE quadrant goes unnoticed by developers and City Hall planners. The focus is almost always on how to improve the downtown, and inner-city with mega revitalization projects like Currie, East Village, Stampede Park, The Bridges and University District. Or suburban projects like SETON, Quarry Park and West District.
How much effort has the City put into encouraging TOD around the NE LRT stations versus Sunnyside, Bridgeland or Stampede stations? Does the ethnic diversity of the NE call for a unique set of planning policies and urban design principles compared to the rest of the city? Are planners clinging to the outdated European main-street centric model for city building?
Recently I decided to flaneured Calgary’s NE quadrant. When I say NE, I mean north of Memorial Drive and east of Deerfoot Trail.
After checking Google Maps for a cluster of interesting places within walking distance and finding none I had to “go flaneuring by car.” First stop was Marlbough Mall the NE’s equivalent to the SW’s Chinook Centre. Unlike Chinook Centre, it hasn’t changed much in 50 years. Next stop was T&T Supermarket with its live fish market, a definite reminder I wasn’t in a grocery store in the SW.
Then it was off to the “Thrift Store District,” (32nd St. & 32nd Ave NE). Arriving at the Salvation Army, I noticed a lady loading 20+ heads of cabbage into her van. Turns out the nearby H&W Produce store had a good deal.
I poked my head in to find a small fresh fruit and vegetables farmers’ market. The NE, has small urban food stores scattered everywhere.
Now hungry, I hopped in the car driving past a bowling alley, an engineering office, carpet and tile store and a couple of colleges I’ve never heard of before arriving at Village Pita Bakery, located in a small food retail centre that included Lola’s Filipino Kitchen, Safari Grill, Jaja Café and Lloyd’s Patty Plus – no chain stores here!
Flaneuring in the NE is definitely not like Beltline, Bridgeland, Inglewood, Kensington or Mission where you park once and walk for several hours.
Main Street vs Transit Oriented Nodes
Calgary’s NE quadrant doesn’t have any main streets i.e. places where you can walk along the sidewalk with shops, cafes and restaurants along the street and offices and/or residences above.
In 2015, the City of Calgary undertook a major Main Street research program identifying 24 existing or potential main streets in Calgary. Link: Calgary Main Streets
City of Calgary planners have identified 24 existing and potential main streets, that they would like to enhance or create.
Only two were east of Deerfoot Trail - 36th Street (from Memorial Drive to 16th Ave NE) and 32 Avenue, (from 12thStreet to Barlow Trail). Unfortunately, both are major roads, with 36th St. also having LRT tracks done the middle.
Converting them to pedestrian oriented main streets would require ripping up everything and starting again.
The reasons there are no NE main streets is because it was built post 1960s, a time when urban planners focused on the automobile as the primary mode of mobility, not walking or transit.
Today, that trend continues in the NE, with several new communities being built north of the airport, but none have a walkable main street or town centre like you see in SETON, Quarry Park, University District or West District. They continue the late 20th century tradition of power centers with commercial buildings surrounded by surface parking and no connecting sidewalks.
32nd Ave SE is currently a hoge-podge of small and medium size businesses, all with surface parking lots. It is a major east/west road for commercial traffic.
36th St NE is a multi-modal road with LRT tracks downtown the middle and three lanes of traffic on either side, with surface parking lots next to the road. Converting this to a pedestrian oriented Main Street would be a herculean task.
There is significant under-used surface parking at the Whitehorn LRT Station that could be redeveloped with a mix of uses including affordable and market housing.
The Marlborough Mall next to the LRT station would be a prime site for a mixed-use Transit Oriented Development.
Too European Centric?
I have often wondered if the obsession with creating linear main streets is because our planning schools continue to see old European cities as the ideal model for city building today. Every new urban revitalization master plan looks the same - a main street with shops, cafes and restaurants with residential above and a central park/plaza surrounded by more residential and some professional offices.
Shouldn’t we be looking at 21st century models for city building? Especially in the NE where the majority of its residents are from south Asia. In Ward 10 (south of the airport) 58% of the population is a visible minority and in Ward 5 (north of the airport), 81% of the population is a visible minority. (Source: City of Calgary Ward Profiles)
When searching Google Maps for interesting things to see, I was surprised at how diverse the NE’s non-residential blocks are. There are craft breweries next to auto shops, next to small bakeries, beside small colleges.
It’s an eclectic mix, with hundreds of small business scattered in modest commercial developments, like a modern bazaar (a marketplace consisting of multiple small stalls or shops, found in Asian cities.) These blocks could easily become walkable urban nodes with the addition of residential development.
Currently the City is focused on adding density into existing residential neighbourhoods. What if the City changed the zoning to allow landowners to build residential above the single storey non-residential in the NE’s older developments near the LRT Stations. By changing the zoning, the City could be the catalyst for diversifying and densifying the grossly underutilized non-residential land.
Why have the NW LRT stations at Dalhousie, Brentwood, Banff Trail and Lions Park all had major residential developments, but not the NE Stations?
Whitehorn Station is ideal for redevelopment with a Safeway and Peter Lougheed Centre within walking distance.
The City’s Whitehorn Multi-Services Centre next to the station would be an ideal place for the City to partner with a developer to create a model NE TOD project. It would the perfect site for a mix of affordable and market housing.
Rather than trying to convert the NE’s major roads into European main streets based on contemporary urban planning dogma, we need a different model. We need to embrace the non-residential blocks, with their unique mix of stores, boutiques, grocers, breweries and colleges, and allow them to evolve into mixed-use nodes, by allowing the integration of residential development.
Let’s convert the NE into a unique collection of 21st century bazaar villages aka mixed-use urban nodes.
Last Word
The more I pondered what makes the NE tick, the more I realized it has an eclectic mix of communities with a diversity of small independent businesses and entrepreneurs that is under-valued.
These new immigrants, like the pioneers who came to Calgary in the late 19th and early 20th century, are going to play a key role in creating Calgary’s future.
It is no coincidence Calgary’s last two mayors grew up in the NE.
FYI: An edited version of this blog was published by CBC Calgary, titled “Calgary’s northeast: A unique urban sense of place demands unique urban zoning” on Dec 24, 2021.