Midtown Station | ?m | ?s | IBI Group

So an interesting update to this one. The MDP amendment, to make this a designated Major Activity Centre, goes to Planning and Urban Development committee on Wednesday, with a refusal recommendation:
From the report:
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Basically, this proposal called for intensities greater than what is seen in the Centre City, and admin sees this as flooding the market, taking away the opportunity for success for other MACs, some of which have seen significant public dollars invested.

If anyone wants to see more, it is item 7.1 on this agenda:
 
So an interesting update to this one. The MDP amendment, to make this a designated Major Activity Centre, goes to Planning and Urban Development committee on Wednesday, with a refusal recommendation:
From the report:
View attachment 345042

Basically, this proposal called for intensities greater than what is seen in the Centre City, and admin sees this as flooding the market, taking away the opportunity for success for other MACs, some of which have seen significant public dollars invested.

If anyone wants to see more, it is item 7.1 on this agenda:
This makes absolutely no sense at all. Why is the world would the city not want to have more development in already serviced areas? This is a mind numbingly stupid decision.
 
This makes absolutely no sense at all. Why is the world would the city not want to have more development in already serviced areas? This is a mind numbingly stupid decision.
Because none of the councilors receive donations from developers like the IBI group. They do however get donations from Mattamy Homes so they have no problem with those empty condos sitting in Cityscape. Let's call it what it is, our councilors are blinded by their own hypocrisy thanks to money.

Now it's making me think TODs like Westbrook, which are proposed to be equally as dense, was never meant to be taken seriously.

I mean does it even matter if this development would take away from the Core? The City would still be getting a higher tax revenue per sq. km, more transit ridership and also providing Calgarians with cheaper highrise condo/rental options relative to downtown. And this isn't even meant to be built overnight, it's a long-term vision, 10-20 years in the making when our metro population starts inching closer to the 2 million mark. Metro Vancouver is probably over 2.5 million people now, yet it has mini downtown nodes sprouting all over the valley. I guess our fundamental plan for population growth is to just develop our downtown and add more greenfield communities for the next 20 years until we have to annex more land or run into commuting issues like LA style traffic. SAD.
 
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Now it's making me think TODs like Westbrook, which are proposed to be equally as dense, was never meant to be taken seriously.
That is in hibernation because how the city sells land prompts developers to over pay, and then they need to do too big or too high price points for projects to make their money back
 
I've read most of the City documents, and I think it's a complicated subject.

The most successful TOD redevelopment sites in Calgary have built off existing commercial areas and communities -- mid-density intensification off inner city communities at Bridgeland and Sunnyside, high rise off of commercial areas at Brentwood especially but also a little at Dalhousie, Lions Park and Heritage. And some of these are a pretty loose definition of 'successful', to be honest. But the industrial area sites without commercial, like 39th Ave and Barlow Max Bell have sat unbothered by even a faint prospect of redevelopment for 40 years now.

TOD benefits from a critical mass; a coffee shop wants to locate somewhere with people living nearby and a prospective apartment dweller wants to live somewhere with a coffee shop, grocery store, etc. A couple of apartment buildings aren't enough to establish a thriving business, and without those local businesses the apartments are much less appealing. And the existing TOD sites help show this -- the ones with the most development (Bridgeland and Sunnyside) are the ones with the best community amenities already in place. The one successful mostly-from-scratch intensification, the East Village, had the benefit of the City through CMLC establishing that this area was going to go, getting a bunch of infrastructure and amenities and promotion put in to get developers happening. (It seems the University District might do something similar through a different institutional land owner; too bad about the lack of transit.) Right now, there are a lot more TOD potential sites in need of amenities than are being developed; adding another to the list won't help.

And it's not a great site. For one thing, this site is not fully serviced -- it's serviced to the capacity of a low density industrial area, but would need upgrades to support high density residential/mixed use development. It's also an isolated site in many ways; on the west is a 250m wide strip of low-density commercial strip mall development with Macleod Trail in the middle between it and Kingsland; on the east before you get to the residents of Fairview is 200+ meters of light industrial land once you cross the CP rail -- which this developer does not have permission to do at this point. (Without a CP crossing, to get to this station from Fairview, the shortest path involves either literally walking through the Chinook LRT station or within 250m of Heritage LRT.)

The rendering and phasing plan also shows density increasing to the north.This is backwards -- the proposed station is at the south, the entire area is swaddled in low-density commercial land so there's no concerns about shadowing, the densest buildings should be closest to the station. It also suggests potentially a bait and switch approach; get the station built and the first few buildings built; it's not like the LRT will skip the station if the promised density doesn't get built on the north end. This is the same lesson as the Bow south block; once the office was built, the cultural and heritage building can be left in renderings and storage yards, having accomplished the goal of getting approval.

The fact that the plan is for 25 years of development doesn't help -- if they said the whole thing was going in one shot, four years start to finish, then I'd believe businesses might locate there, and I'd be much more supportive. But the plan is really to build two apartment towers right away; what sort of commercial development will set up, knowing it's a 10+ year wait for 80% of their customer base? And if they stop after the first phase, which they could (even with the best of intentions, business happens) -- would anybody here argue for adding a train stop and slowing down the LRT and reducing transit service for the sake of a few apartment buildings? Especially ones that -- from the example render -- seem to be built on top of multistory car parking? Forgive me if I don't have a ton of faith.
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Fundamentally, it's not actually all that great a site. The other two infill LRT locations (Northland and 50th Ave S) are both better - Northland has a single owner, and an existing commercial area; 50th Ave has usable land all around the station, and is closer to a larger existing population base. Not to mention the couple of dozen existing LRT sites that are better for TOD by virtue of having T already built and being serviced.

The market for TOD construction will be cannibalized by adding one more potential site, and it's already a slow market and one where not enough sites have reached critical mass. The fundamental problem, of course, is that the market for redevelopment and intensification is being cannibalized on a much grander scale by greenfield. That's the market imbalance that needs to be solved. Ideally at a regional level -- one thing worse than new greenfield housing in Calgary is the same housing being built in greenfield at Airdrie or Cochrane, paying Airdrie taxes while using Calgary services and driving an extra 20 km a day to do so. If that larger imbalance could be solved, then this Midtown project would be, frankly it'd still be an okay plan at best. But at least in that case one more mediocre TOD site wouldn't be taking food from an already starving segment.
 
This makes absolutely no sense at all. Why is the world would the city not want to have more development in already serviced areas? This is a mind numbingly stupid decision.
I get this, but I don't really have much confidence that the City approving this would result in more development. This whole development seems reliant on a new LRT station to be developed to really make much sense, at least part of the cost of a new station would probably be born by the city. With the lack of progress in the Chinook LRT area, I don't really see the market support for the development intensity that is being proposed. The overall serviced area or even the local area isn't exactly constrained by zoned capacity. So we would get another LRT stations and potentially no development?

I guess I am just confused to why approving this now would make much of a difference? Seems the whole thing is a little half-baked and a bit of bait-and-switch type scheme. It doesn't strike me as much more than let's get as much density approved near the centre of the metropolitan area and sit on it.

More generally, I am curious when we will see our first big industrial to residential replacement like this actually built. Seems inevitable along the MacLeod corridor to downtown as the proximity and LRT access are stellar, while the industrial orientation is becoming increasingly obsolete. There's a bit in Manchester that has occurred in recent decades, but plenty more is up for redevelopment.
 
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I'm personally not attached to the area either. There are plenty of other TODS that are waiting to be built out. I just don't like the shitty logic from the City that TODS like this one will somehow cannibalize downtown growth when the city has no problem with tons of condos/rentals being built in the suburbs to meet density targets. If Victoria Park begins rolling, then it will most likely begin to cannibalize the adjacent neighborhoods of Beltline and EV. However, the same logic doesn't really apply to highrise towers sprouting up around Banff trail or Chinook. They'll have their own purpose, such as providing the option for high-density living for people working and going to school within the local area while also providing quick access to public transit.
 
that is such a nasty location. densification wont end well in a place locked in on one side by the tracks and macleod tr on the other with pretty unviable access to east and west as well. its already an avoid at all costs area for me.

also it doesnt even have a station. bad start when there already dozens of other opportunities where stations exist.

im constantly impressed people get paid to come up with proposals like this.

only way i see the area as a viable node is if an east west line along glenmore intersected the station at chinook. at least that could stand a chance.
 

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