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Urban Development and Proposals Discussion

Urban4Lyfe said:
"No this time we are serious". The Stampede probably.
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You do know that a master plan is literally just a guideline, not a committed/funded development plan. It opens the door for funding. By my count, in the 15 years they did the ag arena, youth campus, back of house, added an ex hall, newer LRT stop/17th integration, built the BMO, and now have the hotel and entire north portion under development with Scotia Place. If by 2039 they accomplish even 60% of what's planned...would anybody debate that the 30 year transformation was significant and game changing for the area?

CalgaryTiger said:
To post this again... The Stampede CEO can say it is hard transition from a mud track to a football field, but Houston does it every year without issue. They use their football stadium for the Texans and it also gets used for basketball.

Can't always act like you'd be the first to do something. And let's not pretend that the rodeo and chucks are the main use, the Stampede is a 10-day event, the Stampeders would use it for another 10 days for games. That leaves, with 5 days on either end of the Stampede to transition, 335 days to do something else with the stadium. I mean they're including a Turf Field in their plan, if that isn't a wink to the Stampeders, I don't know what is. With something like this isn't a stretch to request provincial and federal funding for a revamped Stampede Stadium with of course the Stampede and CSEC chipping in some as well, the city wouldn't be on the hook for much in the scenario; that's a lot of funding partners.

As for the master plan, honestly it was a bit of a letdown for me. Most of it is fine but the Stampede HQ and "Calgary Live" are a massive project. Fully understanding this is just a concept of a plan but I wouldn't mind seeing that parcel broken up a little bit. For one, by breaking it up you don't need to do it all at once. Another reason is the sheer size of it; Stampede Park already has the BMO and Scotia Place that take up large parcels that restrict movement. A critique I think we generally have is large podiums and properties that don't break up the property and feel imposing on a human scale. It wouldn't be hard to break that parcel up and still maintain all of its uses and maybe even add a couple. Move the Turf Field to the southeast of the Amphitheatre to be by the linear park along the Elbow River. I'd also like to see a "Weadickville" town square northeast of Amphitheatre and Turf Field along the Elbow River, it could be a transition between the Live Events and Heritage Zone. I guess in summary what I want are more open spaces, not parking lots, but just spaces that don't feel so imposing to build or be in. You know make it Stampede "Park".
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Houston is an indoor controlled facility who's football team is done 8 weeks before that rodeo...which is also not a horse track. Not saying it cant be done...but they arent wrong, it currently isn't being done anywhere outdoors in a 4-5 day span

Stampede Park's role isnt to be a "park" in your sense of the word. It's role is events, agriculture, destination tourism. They've built out plently of space in the NE and across the river for "quiet zones"....an entertainment district is exactly what they've scoped....streets/venues/attractions. None of the structures they've shown seem to be imposing or daunting...nor does it prevent them from being "broken up"...that's for designers once theres money commited to a project. The point really is, if its about food or music, put it "there"
 
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Roaring Flames said:
If Calgary had a market for stadium concerts, they would already be happening at the existing Grandstand
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Grandstand + standing room has barely any more (if any) capacity than Saddledome (3/4) + floor seating. Saddledome in the round probably has slightly more.

Saddledome has more premium seats and suites; Grandstand has some excellent premium venues, but they are tailored to rodeo and evening show - you can spend more time schmoozing at a table and less in your 'bleacher seat' than you would during a concert.

It's also hard to ramp up the grandstand for one-off events. They've done it for Monster Jams, but it is hard to staff up (would become easier with ongoing Stampeders staff), and the Grandstand isn't as well suited to generate F&B revenue (Saddledome has a better idea of exactly how many hot dogs to thaw, and are likely to have another event within days before things spoil, etc).


But all of that can easily change with more capacity and design considerations (expect more typical suites in a new grandstand). It is still a bit weird that they're currently building [seemingly] permanent new infield suites within the confines of where the football field would be, but maybe they've somehow planned accordingly.
 
Tothewest said:
You do know that a master plan is literally just a guideline, not a committed/funded development plan. It opens the door for funding. By my count, in the 15 years they did the ag arena, youth campus, back of house, added an ex hall, newer LRT stop/17th integration, built the BMO, and now have the hotel and entire north portion under development with Scotia Place. If by 2039 they accomplish even 60% of what's planned...would anybody debate that the 30 year transformation was significant and game changing for the area?
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New Indian Village and Enmax park, a new bridge over the Elbow and new Ops building (closer to 20 years now) and some significant operational/storage changes (which you probably meant with 'back of house')

Also the whole park flooded 13 years ago (that was 13 years ago?!?!?!?) - they slapped things together within 2 weeks for Stampede, but I'd imagine a lot of the rest of that year was spent on restoration moreso than new capital upgrades
 
Roaring Flames said:
The Grandstand is 17k + 8k standing. The Saddledome's in the round capacity is 17,100
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Depends on stage configuration, but there's no reason Saddledome can't seat ~18500 + 1600 floor seats for a concert. Promoters usually just choose not to (and these days a show that might want to simply ain't coming here).

8k standing is a huge stretch (especially for a concert), and you'd still make more selling 1600 floor seats.

The cheapest 5000 seats don't matter nearly as much as the priciest 5000. At the end of the day they have similar max capacities, but the arena is way more profitable.
 
Roaring Flames said:
If Calgary had a market for stadium concerts, they would already be happening at the existing Grandstand
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I doubt it; modern mega-concert tours tend to be designed for either a football/soccer stadium or an indoor arena (or, less commonly, a baseball park). They don't just show up and try to figure out how to shoehorn their show into a bunch of oddball facilities; they can more-or-less standardize the experience. A grandstand is not a common layout.

I suggested we'd get 2 or less stadium concerts a year because Edmonton - basically the same size market - has been getting around 2-3 nights worth of concerts per year in Commonwealth Stadium:
2026 Post Malone, AC/DC, Guns N' Roses, Foo Fighters
2025 Morgan Wallen (2 nights), The Weeknd
2024 P!nk, Metallica (2 nights)
2023 Luke Combs
2022 Poison/Mötley Crüe, Garth Brooks (2 nights)
2021 none
2020 none
2019 Guns N' Roses
2018 none
2017 Metallica
2016 Fort McMurray Fire Aid, Beyoncé
2015 AC/DC, One Direction

These are sometimes more 'regional' shows; for instance, Morgan Wallen only played in three other cities in the western half of the continent (Seattle, Bay Area, Phoenix); Metallica played Seattle the same year as Edmonton, they played LA and Phoenix the year before and the Bay Area and Denver the year after. I suspect in these cases we'd often lose out to Edmonton (unless we built a 60,000+ seat stadium -- something I don't think anyone is suggesting). This sort of mini-residence seems to be becoming more common as leisure travel costs are cheap and concerts are expected to have a high level of spectacle; heck, Harry Styles' upcoming North American tour consists -- in its entirety -- of 6 nights in Mexico City and 27 in Madison Square Garden.
 
Just for kicks I did a parking lot audit for the downtown CBD, west end and EV comparing 2006 to 2026. An empty lot, being an empty lot, a surfacing parking lot or a building that was no higher than 1 floor and had surface parking attached, or building that more or less had no use (former native friendship building in Chinatown). I also didn't include small narrow lots in between buildings, though there were very many of them.. in 2006 there were a total of 85 empty or underused parcels (I may have missed one or two)

Going by my calculations, over the past 20 years, downtown has seen:
- 40 parcels (shown in green) of the 85 underutilized parcels developed.
- 4 parcels that were developed turn to empty parcels (shown in blue)
- Today there are roughly 48 parcels left to develop
- of the 48 remaining underutilized parcels, 9 have active development or building permits.

B99GKhS.jpeg


Of course we have a ways to go, but I also think the downtown has progressed very well over the past 20 years. A lot has been filled in around the periphery, which is what was really needed, especially EV. I would bet that in the previous 20-30 years there another 40 underused lots that were developed, most of that in the centre of the image where there is no red or green.

The next step, when I get some free time will be to do the Beltline.
 
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Here are a few more comparisons.

1975. Not a whole lot going on downtown other than a tightly woven cluster of office buildings and a few houses.

TG3DziL.jpeg



1985: A considerable difference, but only the addition of more office buildings, and some previous houses now empty lots.
NVFhuSx.jpeg



2006: Starting to see some build out around the office cluster core. Major gains around Eau Claire, and West End, but still nothing in EV at this point.
NyLOLOz.jpeg


2025: lots more filling in, the shadows are filling up the photo as a whole rather than once cluster in the middle.
UvmFEKB.jpeg
 
Surrealplaces said:
Just for kicks I did a parking lot audit for the downtown CBD, west end and EV comparing 2006 to 2026. An empty lot, being an empty lot, a surfacing parking lot or a building that was no higher than 1 floor and had surface parking attached, or building that more or less had no use (former native friendship building in Chinatown). I also didn't include small narrow lots in between buildings, though there were very many of them.. in 2006 there were a total of 85 empty or underused parcels (I may have missed one or two)

Going by my calculations, over the past 20 years, downtown has seen:
- 40 parcels (shown in green) of the 85 underutilized parcels developed.
- 4 parcels that were developed turn to empty parcels (shown in blue)
- Today there are roughly 48 parcels left to develop
- of the 48 remaining underutilized parcels, 9 have active development or building permits.

B99GKhS.jpeg


Of course we have a ways to go, but I also think the downtown has progressed very well over the past 20 years. A lot has been filled in around the periphery, which is what was really needed, especially EV. I would bet that in the previous 20-30 years there another 40 underused lots that were developed, most of that in the centre of the image where there is no red or green.

The next step, when I get some free time will be to do the Beltline.
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Love this! Curious to see what kind of inventory the Beltline has left. Once the east end of DT/Beltline/Rivers District is built out, the West Village will be next.
 
Urb said:
Love this! Curious to see what kind of inventory the Beltline has left. Once the east end of DT/Beltline/Rivers District is built out, the West Village will be next.
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I was thinking of doing the Beltline, but taking a quick glance at the Beltline from 20 years ago, or even 30 years ago, shows, it hasn't really seen development of empty lots, except along 10th ave. Almost all of the Beltline highrises built in the past 20 years - 50 to be precise (48 residential and 2 office) have replaced an existing smaller building. Amazing that a neighborhood can jump from 14,000 to 33,000 in 20 years and not really develop many empty lots.
 
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