Calgary Event Centre | 36.85m | 11s | CSEC | HOK

Do you support the proposal for the new arena?

  • Yes

    Votes: 89 65.0%

  • No

    Votes: 39 28.5%

  • Maybe

    Votes: 9 6.6%
  • Total voters
    137
I always liked that tree. It's a living thing surrounded by a sea of dead parking lot, except when Beakerhead took over the area and make it alive. It could never survive either the relentless profit machine of development, or the efforts to revive and rebuild from asphalt ruin and a long and complicated history, none of this is black and white one or the other. I've known since I first saw it more than 15 years ago that this would happen (Have they been trying to build an arena that long? Feels like it)

But then, opinions like this are why I never talk on here. None of you will like this post probably, I ignored several users on the way here, but I'm used to my interest in urban planning and the spaces I used to spend a lot of time in making me feel this way. I just want to say that I liked a tree and maybe some of you did too.
 
Zoom said:
Every city in the world has an undesirable neighbourhood (or several) and the decline is always the same story. They were once nice neighborhoods, but series of different factors started some decline, and once it was in decline, it’s was vicious circle.
Whatever the causes were for Victoria Park’s decline, if it wasn’t Victoria Park, it would been another inner city neighborhood.
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Exactly. It had been in decay for 60 years, and has been gone for nearly 20, we should probably move on.
CBBarnett said:
TL/DR:
What Victoria Park as a community was, was distorted and ultimately destroyed over a series of political and policy decisions spanning decades. This would not have happened in the same way had it not been for the massive amounts of public dollars and unstable Stampede expansion plans uniquely focused on the area that destabilized and destroyed it. There's nothing natural about it's evolution.
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A neighborhood like that (single family, duplexes) was never going to prosper next to an exhibition ground (see van, regina, edm). City had an asset in Stampede that's been there since 1899, plans are put in place that ensure its development is put ahead of anything else in its immediate area. I'd say that was 100% the right decision...without those plans and restrictions, would the Saddledome have been built where it was (parking, ect...)?
 
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People hate gentrification as many decaying, low income urban neighbourhoods from the suburbanization era are now desirable and high priced the poor can no longer afford.

A whole neighbourhood of single family homes is not the best use. Intensification was inevitable. You have to wonder if there would be a thriving intensified gentrified neighbourhood there today if it wasn't demolished for parking lots. What will eventually fill the remaining blocks are more master planned blocks with towers on podiums compared to more organic intensification with wider variety of uses and spaces.
 
maestro said:
People hate gentrification as many decaying, low income urban neighbourhoods from the suburbanization era are now desirable and high priced the poor can no longer afford.

A whole neighbourhood of single family homes is not the best use. Intensification was inevitable. You have to wonder if there would be a thriving intensified gentrified neighbourhood there today if it wasn't demolished for parking lots. What will eventually fill the remaining blocks are more master planned blocks with towers on podiums compared to more organic intensification with wider variety of uses and spaces.
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Here's a post from Historic Calgary facebook group from 1969 - source

Great angle of pre-tear down, 17th Ave remained fully intact as the northern edge of the grounds at that time. You can see the start of Beltline's transition to something more denser too with the first apartment blocks.
1711305086715.png
 
CBBarnett said:
Here's a post from Historic Calgary facebook group from 1969 - source

Great angle of pre-tear down, 17th Ave remained fully intact as the northern edge of the grounds at that time. You can see the start of Beltline's transition to something more denser too with the first apartment blocks.
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Yah see when i look at that photo, i see the last remaining single family home area near an encroaching downtown, bordered by an exhibition ground that would inevitably grow and a railyard. These types of neighborhoods just dont exist anymore in major cities THAT close to downtown (that arent crime ridden), void of some type of barrier (river) ie: kensington, bridgeland, inglewood, ect... so i fail to see how this is the city or stampede's "fault".
We could have moved the stampede/saddledome/bmo to the city periphery to save VP...to which we'd all today be crowing about how dumb of a decision that was and what a loss it was for the downtown/beltline
 
Tothewest said:
Yah see when i look at that photo, i see the last remaining single family home area near an encroaching downtown, bordered by an exhibition ground that would inevitably grow and a railyard. These types of neighborhoods just dont exist anymore in major cities THAT close to downtown (that arent crime ridden), void of some type of barrier (river) ie: kensington, bridgeland, inglewood, ect... so i fail to see how this is the city or stampede's "fault".
We could have moved the stampede/saddledome/bmo to the city periphery to save VP...to which we'd all today be crowing about how dumb of a decision that was and what a loss it was for the downtown/beltline
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I mean - it is the city's and Stampede's fault because they literally did much of the buying and tearing down of the community , and used your tax dollars to do so. Their impact destabilized the rest of the property market in the area, accelerating the decline of everything that they didn't buy and tear down themselves.

You did pick up on an important trend here of communities near and around downtowns in growing major cities - they are under substantial pressure to change. But notice that Beltline, Kensington, Bridgeland, Mission, Lower Mount Royal, Sunalta don't look like Victoria Park? They all have changed, but remain or even have grown into vibrant urban places. I wonder what the difference was....

You can absolutely argue that it was worth it for the city and Stampede to do what they did. That's fair - but you can't argue it wasn't their fault or was some immutable law of physics that would have happened anyway.

The only reason why this matters is we are at the next opportunity to try to "fix" the area again. It's the same players at the table. The hope is that yet more public investment, yet another world-class arena, yet a bigger convention centre will do it "right" finally.

That might happen this time, Victoria Park may become a thriving neighbourhood! But it's the same approach, organizations, and interests at work today that created the parking wasteland - we should be aware of history so we can learn from it and offer healthy skepticism to bold claims about how arenas and event centres will solve all local problems.
 
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CBBarnett said:
I mean - it is the city's and Stampede's fault because they literally did the much of the buying and tearing down of the community , and used your tax dollars to do so. Their impact destabilized the rest of the property market in the area, accelerating the decline of everything that they didn't buy and tear down themselves.

You did pick up on an important trend here of communities near and around downtowns in growing major cities - they are under substantial pressure to change. But notice that Beltline, Kensington, Bridgeland, Mission, Lower Mount Royal, Sunalta don't look like Victoria Park? They all have changed, but remain or even have grown into vibrant urban places. I wonder what the different was....

You can absolutely argue that it was worth it for the city and Stampede to do what they did. That's fair - but you can't argue it wasn't their fault or was some immutable law of physics that would have happened anyway.

The only reason why this matters is we are at the next opportunity to try to "fix" the area again. It's the same players at the table. The hope is that yet more public investment, yet another world-class arena, yet a bigger convention centre will do it "right" finally.

That might happen this time, Victoria Park may become a thriving neighbourhood! But it's the same approach, organizations, and interests at work today that created the parking wasteland - we should be aware of history so we can learn from it and offer healthy skepticism to bold claims about how arenas and event centres will solve all local problems.
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Not going to get into the weeds anymore on this….but take one extra look at that photo, and notice the plots of single fam homes in eau claire area. Do we miss those? Are we mad about that neighborhood going away? Those small high rises in beltline…chances are real strong those used to be homes too. But guess what, change happens. Whats the difference if its large scale highrise development or exhibition expansion/saddledome/event centre? You need all of them to grow a city, U cant it both ways.
 
Tothewest said:
Not going to get into the weeds anymore on this….but take one extra look at that photo, and notice the plots of single fam homes in eau claire area. Do we miss those? Are we mad about that neighborhood going away? Those small high rises in beltline…chances are real strong those used to be homes too. But guess what, change happens. Whats the difference if its large scale highrise development or exhibition expansion/saddledome/event centre? You need all of them to grow a city, U cant it both ways.
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Good point! I've annotated the 1972 photo with what the neighbourhood was developed into 50 years later. As you point out, highrise redevelopment and event centres were the only two things that were or could ever possibly be done here, so what's the difference?
1711354073123.png
 
CBBarnett said:
You did pick up on an important trend here of communities near and around downtowns in growing major cities - they are under substantial pressure to change. But notice that Beltline, Kensington, Bridgeland, Mission, Lower Mount Royal, Sunalta don't look like Victoria Park? They all have changed, but remain or even have grown into vibrant urban places. I wonder what the different was....
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I don’t think there’s any question the stampede and the city for the main drivers behind Victoria Parks demise. Although I would say it’s hard to compare to places like Beltline, Sunalta, Lower Mount Royal, Mission or Bridgeland.
Especially Bridgeland, lower Mount Royal, mission as those areas were already nicer areas to begin with. Victoria Park being sandwich between a rail yard, and the stampede crowns was never going to thrive either way. The best we could’ve hoped for is that the single-family homes would be torn down and replaced with apartment buildings like they were in places like Mission or Sunnyside, etc. however, as somebody already mentioned, if Victoria Park thrived, some other neighbourhood would be the bumped to the bottom of the rung.
Not every inner city area can be gentrified into a nice neighbourhood and because of Victoria parks, geographical location it was likely the natural area to go into decline.
Of course, the stampede and the city accelerated it but if they didn’t buy up all that land for expansion, I’m not sure it would be much different today.
 
ByeByeBaby said:
Good point! I've annotated the 1972 photo with what the neighbourhood was developed into 50 years later. As you point out, highrise redevelopment and event centres were the only two things that were or could ever possibly be done here, so what's the difference?
View attachment 550869
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Successful planning outcome everyone. No notes.
 
ByeByeBaby said:
Good point! I've annotated the 1972 photo with what the neighbourhood was developed into 50 years later. As you point out, highrise redevelopment and event centres were the only two things that were or could ever possibly be done here, so what's the difference?
View attachment 550869
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cool bro. I too want to live in a city where u can have a major rodeo/exhibition ground, indoor arena, and convention center on the same plot AND provide no parking. You act like stampede is brand new. Surface parking was the way things were done for decades, everywhere. But guess what, theres now a path forward with facilities designed with streetscapes in mind, with less surface parking! So whether it was developed 20 years ago, 15 years ago, or 3 years from now, its the same end result. VP was not going to exist as it was in any circumstance, move on
 
So getting back to the Event Centre. Because the concourse is very likely at the top of the lower bowl the second floor over top of the retail along Stampede Trail that served as offices for CSEC last time should be at the same level this time as the suite level which means there's all that space for a sizable club section this time along with possibly a balcony. Also I'm curious if the community arena will end up at either the underground club level or event level just by how the underground foundation extends into the SE corner.
 
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