Kensington Yards | 130m | 38s | Bankside | Allies and Morrison

I like the location for high density, and whatever goes in, either as is or scaled down, it will be much better than what's there now.
 
Neonfuzion said:
Cool proposal, for a nice area, but there's like a billion condos in the city with values to fall even further in the next few years as more come online

Realistically needs to be scaled down or else it won't go anywhere
Click to expand...
Calgary's condo market will probably stay on the flat side, but condos in good locations will do okay, and to me, this is a great location. There's been a ot of discussion about nearby LRT stations, but this location is also great for walking or cycling, with easy access to cycling infrastructure. From here it would be so easy to walk or cycle to downtown, and so easy to cycle to areas like Bridgeland, Beltline, or Inglewood.
 
Definitely a bit of an odd area to try to cram this much into...kind of feels they assumed it was the last plot of land available in Calgary. I think this would have a better chance of working if they just kept all the buildings mid-rise...it could be a nice little University District for SAIT/ACAD.

I guess good luck and all, but I imagine the chances of this coming to life anywhere close to as-is are probably pretty low.
 
DiscoStu said:
Definitely a bit of an odd area to try to cram this much into...kind of feels they assumed it was the last plot of land available in Calgary. I think this would have a better chance of working if they just kept all the buildings mid-rise...it could be a nice little University District for SAIT/ACAD.

I guess good luck and all, but I imagine the chances of this coming to life anywhere close to as-is are probably pretty low.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty much expecting this will get scaled down, I kind of think they are starting high and planning to meet in the middle. With most of the buildings being 5 and 6 floors, if the 5 tallest ones get scaled down, it'll almost be like U/D, with a bunch of low rises and some tall mixed in (tall being like 10-20 floors-ish)
Will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
 
It looks like it’s already zoned for 15 stories on most of the site. This is a jump in height, but does it really matter if some of the towers are 20 stories vs 30 stories, if there aren’t any resulting shadowing issues? I’m a fan of how they’ve spread the density out, by keeping low rises around the edges and the towers in the back. It’s a big improvement over having a bunch of buildings of all the same height (12-15 stories).
 
I'm not too concerned about demand. We are probably a couple of years away from a DP and I would guess a good 20 years to being fully built. They can get started with some of the low rise buildings. Things have slowed a little right now, but can really pick up quickly in this city. It's a bit of a coin flip, but with talk about new LNG facilities, gas fired Data Centres, the Pathways project and a new pipeline (opening up the possibility of companies at least considering large greenfield oil sands projects), there is a world where O&G needs to really ramp up head office staffing to support a lot of new activity. Along with Tech continuing to grow, I can see the potential for another boom in the next 5 years. One thing that could be a big issue for demand is that it appears very few units have a balcony.

The location seems great to me. There is the elementary school across the street and there is also Queen Elizabeth Jr/Sr High and Queen Elizabeth Elementary within about 1km.

Traffic could be a concern. I previously lived a few blocks from this site and would just take a scooter to work downtown for about 7 months a year. Getting to the Sunnyside station from here isn't that bad, as you can cut through Riley park. I'm also thinking that 8 Ave could be extended to 10 St.
 
Hiring a starchitect was a mistake, you won't be able to get your money out of their design because this will face similar opposition as Glenmore landing. It is very similarly setup in that it doesn't directly affect many and is actually well suited to the parcel but the drastic change from what was/is there will bring out even the moderately engaged to at least comment. This council doesn't feel like one that would approve it, especially since they're in the middle of the "war on cars" debate.
 
KensingtonLurker said:
Traffic could be a concern. I previously lived a few blocks from this site and would just take a scooter to work downtown for about 7 months a year. Getting to the Sunnyside station from here isn't that bad, as you can cut through Riley park. I'm also thinking that 8 Ave could be extended to 10 St.
Click to expand...
I don't think 8th Ave has ever been connected to 10th but it would be a good outcome of this development if it triggered all these streets to be re-integrated into the proper urban grid network.

The central issue is that 14th and 10th here both are effectively suburban car sewers that vastly prioritize vehicle movements from well outside the local area (e.g. up on the top of the escarpment) over local movements in Hillhurst itself. This resulted in 8th became a bit of a dead-end because access was never provided or encouraged, partially reinforcing the feeling why this location seems "out of place" for development - despite it being no farther away from amenities than many other projects that don't exist is a local pocket designed to be isolated and forgotten.

We will have a much better city once we break free of the chains of 1960s era decisions to make so many inner city streets about volume and flow of commuter vehicles. Projects like this are significant enough that they can shake up that paradigm, maybe trigger a re-think on ideas like 14th and 10th should have +1km stretches with no traffic controls in an otherwise walkable urbanizing area. Maybe the flows from this development will also trigger the signals that do exist to be rethought so they are more even, so local movements don't have a 2 or 3 minute penalty waiting for a green that benefits only commuters cutting through the area.
 
Last edited:
^^^^ Yes yes yes. My knee-jerk reaction to connecting 8th avenue to 10th street was "No" simply due to the fact that I'm thinking about it all in the car sewer mentality, not in a an urban connected grid complete street mentality.
 
It's likely the city owns the 8th Ave right away to 10th street so it could be solved between two parties. You have to wonder if the city could trade access and a more palatable project overall while getting percentage of units (or dedicated parcel) to be affordable housing.

8th Ave connection to 10th street paid by developer (Mitigates public traffic concern)
Admin agrees to higher density to justify additional costs and can push for affordable housing metric in a transit adjacent location.

We can do this!
 
Last edited:
CBBarnett said:
I don't think 8th Ave has ever been connected to 10th but it would be a good outcome of this development if it triggered all these streets to be re-integrated into the proper urban grid network.

The central issue is that 14th and 10th here both are effectively suburban car sewers that vastly prioritize vehicle movements from well outside the local area (e.g. up on the top of the escarpment) over local movements in Hillhurst itself. This resulted in 8th became a bit of a dead-end because access was never provided or encouraged, partially reinforcing the feeling why this location seems "out of place" for development - despite it being no farther away from amenities than many other projects that don't exist is a local pocket designed to be isolated and forgotten.

We will have a much better city once we break free of the chains of 1960s era decisions to make so many inner city streets about volume and flow of commuter vehicles. Projects like this are significant enough that they can shake up that paradigm, maybe trigger a re-think on ideas like 14th and 10th should have +1km stretches with no traffic controls in an otherwise walkable urbanizing area. Maybe the flows from this development will also trigger the signals that do exist to be rethought so they are more even, so local movements don't have a 2 or 3 minute penalty waiting for a green that benefits only commuters cutting through the area.
Click to expand...
If they pair this with making Crowchild free flow from Kensington to 24th, I don't think 14th will actually get that much busier. After a certain point, it'll make more sense to go Crowchild-John Laurie for those commuting North, and 14th will be used for more local traffic.
 
Looking at google maps, it appears that the City has placed a large piece of stormwater infrastructure right where 8th Avenue would connect with 10th Street:
www.google.ca

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
www.google.ca www.google.ca
1771876817985.png


Also, a signal cannot be installed at 8th Avenue and 14th Street due to the grades of 14th Street. Trying to stop on the hill in winter would create a hazard, hence why no signal is there, and instead the signal was installed at 7th AVenue instead (once the old pedestrian bridge was removed to make the signal visible). I have a feeling the same concern would occur at the 10th STreet connection as well, but not sure if a signal would be warranted or not.
 
Are there any amenities in plan? I'm not sure how much NIMBY concern it'll alleviate but these master planned communities, especially if they are proposing a height 10 stories beyond the LAP that was done last year (I think the height could work, but LAPs are dumb and a waste of time), they usually include some community amenities. For example, Toronto's Fort York area was a master planned community, about 20 years ago when this concept was new to Toronto, and there's a community rec centre and a library within the community. Pinnacle's One Yonge development has a rec centre and pool in one of the podiums. West District in the SW is getting a YMCA. Much like how we build roads before building homes, we need to do the same with infrastructure. And it's not true that inner city somehow has spare infrastructure capacity, schools are full, recreation programs are full. That's not a reason to not build more homes, but they have to be done in a way that the infrastructure is able to keep up.
 
MichaelS said:
Looking at google maps, it appears that the City has placed a large piece of stormwater infrastructure right where 8th Avenue would connect with 10th Street:
www.google.ca

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
www.google.ca www.google.ca
View attachment 717015

Also, a signal cannot be installed at 8th Avenue and 14th Street due to the grades of 14th Street. Trying to stop on the hill in winter would create a hazard, hence why no signal is there, and instead the signal was installed at 7th AVenue instead (once the old pedestrian bridge was removed to make the signal visible). I have a feeling the same concern would occur at the 10th STreet connection as well, but not sure if a signal would be warranted or not.
Click to expand...
A pedestrian crossing is planned at 10th and 8, so the expectation is that people can stop on the hill. The set up you see here is part of the Upper Plateau separation, primarily a drainage project for the North, creating a new line to drain stormwater. They are doing some work here but it's used as a staging area but once it's done, shouldn't impact pedestrian realm above ground.

1771877543516.png
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top