Century Garden Park

Developer: City of Calgary
Architect: PFS Studio
  
Address:
Category: Institutional
Status: CompleteCompletion: TBD
Height: ? ft / ? mStoreys: ? storeys
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Century Garden Park | ?m | ?s | City of Calgary | PFS Studio

Colinfill said:
The EV basketball court really shows you what a great contribution a court can be to a community. It provides an opportunity for physical activity for youth, adds vibrancy to an area, and seems to be rather low maintenance. Really hope the City adds more throughout downtown and the Beltline.
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Everything I go past it, it's always busy. It's been a great addition to EV.
 
1875 said:
wonder how arms length the procurement is from the supplier. crooked or incompetent or both.
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The city owns its own tree farms - but whether a supplier needs to use them, not sure. Also, until at least hand over, I would bet the watering would be the contractor--in new communities the developer needs to water public trees for ~7 years or so? At least that was the possibly apocryphal thing I was told growing up as you could tell which trees were still maintained by developers versus the city.
 
darwink said:
It is being looked at at least. The EV court is amazing -- shows the value of and how valued by people centrally located well maintained spaces are.
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Exactly. It's nice to see downtown inner city space space used for something other than a empty piece of grass. Every time I see this parcel on 7th ave, I always think it's wasting away. It too could make a good basketball court, or be something more usable than it is. Maybe a small developed square with a kiosk or two.
 
Visited here on Canada Day. I must say I was underwhelmed. About a third of the space is just bare grass. The water elements are OK but if you are looking for shade, you will need to go to a different park. There are very few trees and the ones that are there are newly planted. It will take years for them to grow.
 
JonnyCanuck said:
Visited here on Canada Day. I must say I was underwhelmed. About a third of the space is just bare grass. The water elements are OK but if you are looking for shade, you will need to go to a different park. There are very few trees and the ones that are there are newly planted. It will take years for them to grow.
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I think maybe part of the problem here is your expectations, if you're underwhelmed that the trees are 'newly planted' in a park that just opened. Less snarkily, I think if you head here expecting a major regional attractor park, you'll be disappointed. If I understand correctly, a big chunk of the grass space is temporary space owned by a developer. The whole park is only around 8000 sq m, (6500 without the development site) which is the rough size of Beltline parks like Barb Scott, Thompson Family and Lougheed House / Beaulieu Gardens -- all three of them largely grass fields, and all three of them well used.

There are 10 highrise apartment buildings - 3,677 residents in the 2016 Census -- in the 9 blocks surrounding the park, plus half a dozen office buildings over 20 stories and plenty of smaller ones. I think it could be very successful as a neighbourhood park and workday lunch spot; when I was there a week and a half ago, it was being well used for those sorts of things; people sitting on the benches chatting, a dad throwing his son a football, dogs being walked, a picnic on the grass. (By the way, Pure Vietnamese Kitchen across the street is a great choice for your picnic needs here; I've never been disappointed with their food, especially the options that move away from the 'standard' Vietnamese options. Can't wait to go to their wing night again.)
 
ByeByeBaby said:
I think maybe part of the problem here is your expectations, if you're underwhelmed that the trees are 'newly planted' in a park that just opened.
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What is missing is shade. There are other ways of providing some shade without trees. There were mature trees there before and yes they were lost in the demolition. So naturally, new trees will take some time to provide cover.
In the meantime, on a hot day like we had many of recently, you are wide open to the elements.
 
I hear you about the trees. The city not only does a piss poor job maintaining and caring for new trees, they also rip down and bulldoze mature trees with delight (see Eau Claire Plaza). They really couldn’t be bothered to work around and try and save some of the mature trees. Honestly, the amount of dead trees across the city is staggering.
About 3 years ago the city planted roughly 50-60 trees that run along the Hidden Valley sound wall on Beddington Trail. Last week they just cut down and removed every tree except 7. You read that right, 7/60 survived three years (and the 7 that are alive are not in the best shape). What a waste of time, money, and resources.
 
JonnyCanuck said:
What is missing is shade. There are other ways of providing some shade without trees. There were mature trees there before and yes they were lost in the demolition. So naturally, new trees will take some time to provide cover.
In the meantime, on a hot day like we had many of recently, you are wide open to the elements.
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Maybe some umbrellas (during the summer) near the benches would do the trick. I went past the park on the weekend, and it is definitely wide open. The big piece of grass on the NW corner makes it feels makes it look barren.

Back to the idea of a basketball court, the city could also put some benches with umbrellas along the south side of the basketball court. Problem solved.
 
At least with Eau Claire Plaza, the mature trees taken out are being processed into timber for the new furniture in and around the plaza and river path. Not sure what/if they did anything with these trees.
 
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