BMO Centre Expansion | 25m | 5s | CMLC

403808 said:
Get used to it.
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Don't have a choice do I... Haha I'm just some guy on a forum. I really like the building, my point was that most people will not be going inside, so I would've liked to have seen higher quality exterior finishings. Which I think is a pretty fair criticism.
 
CalgaryTiger said:
Don't have a choice do I... Haha I'm just some guy on a forum. I really like the building, my point was that most people will not be going inside, so I would've liked to have seen higher quality exterior finishings. Which I think is a pretty fair criticism.
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I edited my post to remove those words at the same time you posed this (because it sounded brash and I didn't intend it that way). My point was 99.9% of people will not know the difference between the renders and the actual building (just like they don't remember the differences between the completed central library and its renderings).

When completed and landscaped, this building will be judged on its own merit and I have no doubt it will be amazing.
 
Will anybody be able to easily access the landscaping, apart from trapsing through it on their way to/from the Saddledome? The main landscaping area is in the SE Corner, far removed from the rest of the community, with no active uses to draw citizens from the greater area community to it.
 
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For me, as just some other person on a forum with an opinion, I unfortunately see this drifting closer towards the bibliotank-y end of the spectrum as it goes. It's not particularly ugly yet, but something continues to not add up here. Apart from the ginormous size and the $500M price tag, looks kind of cheap?

Reminds me of a very made-in-Calgary recreation centre and/or LRT station:
  • random curvy bits, usually on the roof combined with sharp triangles
  • giant blank walls on almost all sides with no active uses. Use boring but relatively agreeable colours.
  • What will likely be an in-ordinately large back-of-house with truck loading bays that conveniently don't feature much in any of the renderings
  • The "largest" moniker per a geography ("largest convention centre in western Canada", "largest YMCA x 2", "largest fireplace")
  • surrounded by seas of surface parking and/or pedestrian-ignorant landscape design of needlessly curvy paths
  • Relatively nice interior amenities
My last joke but it's heading this way - it's almost like we gave an architecture firm $500M to design a convention centre and tell them to make it "contextual" to the Calgary's public facility existing architecture motif:
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MichaelS said:
Will anybody be able to easily access the landscaping, apart from trapsing through it on their way to/from the Saddledome? The main landscaping area is in the SE Corner, far removed the rest of the community, with no active uses to draw citizens from the greater area community to it.
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Something needs to be done with Weadickville and I'm curious how long the Big Four's life will be once this is completed.
 
MichaelS said:
Will anybody be able to easily access the landscaping, apart from trapsing through it on their way to/from the Saddledome? The main landscaping area is in the SE Corner, far removed the rest of the community, with no active uses to draw citizens from the greater area community to it.
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Don't forget 17th Ave will soon be going through the park and Stampede Trail will be completely redeveloped shortly (with or without an event center).
 
CalgaryTiger said:
Something needs to be done with Weadickville and I'm curious how long the Big Four's life will be once this is completed.
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The fort structure around Rotary House will be coming down within the year and Wedickville will get some love. The Big4 isn't going anywhere anytime soon (until there is a need for a third hotel on the property).
 
403808 said:
Don't forget 17th Ave will soon be going through the park and Stampede Trail will be completely redeveloped shortly (with or without an event center).
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Yes, the road will connect. What will make people walk the approximately 300m distance from Macleod Trail to the garden area, where there is no longer any hope of a retail amenity since that has been removed from the project (what was supposed to be at the end of the archway)? It will just be a blank wall on the north side (doors to a convention centre don't really count as activiation in my mind), and a very large parking lot to the south. I don't see people buying a coffee at Rosso on Centre Street, and walking all that way to sit in a park, with a view of a parking lot.

Edit: I should say I don't doubt that the landscaping/garden area will be nice. I bet it will be very high quality. I just think it has been situated as part of the overall design in a way that means nobody will really care, nor bother to go see it. This project does nothing to bring people into the Stampede Grounds, unless they are attending a specific conference or event at it.
 
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I agree with others here. overall this a big improvement over the old BMO/Corral and a much needed and welcome addition to Stampede Park. I generally think the overall design of the building is cool, however, it isn't earth shattering and is failing to live up to the hype at this point. I'm quite confident the interior will be great and highly functional (I'll reserve judgement until I actually go inside), so i want to focus on the exterior.

I'm highly critical of three things: 1. The rather mediocre and low grade exterior materials (bait and switch), 2. The complete lack of retail, and 3. The rather sterile/oppressive pedestrian realm that does little to attract pedestrians outside of events/Stampede.

As of now the materials are not as advertised. I'm not a fan of the brick panels, the "metallic copper" panels are non existent, and the window treatment seems off. I'll wait and see how the front shapes up with the curves, but right now the whole thing feels a little cheap.

The lack of retail is self explanatory. There is nothing to attract people or make them stay on non-event days. CMLC bragged about making Stampede Park a year round destination, however, they have done nothing with this building to live up to that statement at this point. Not a single food/drink vendor, merchandise shop, or anything else is available at street level. Somewhere along the exterior (closer to 17th Ave) should have been a Stampede Souvenir shop, coffee shop, fast food joint, and perhaps a destination restaurant (like the old Cantina). I'm hoping that there will be some good retail offerings on Olympic Ave, but there is nothing along 17th from McLeod to Olympic Ave to bridge the gap.

What will greet pedestrians along this gap is a massive blank fake brick wall. Seems rather oppressive. While I'm confident the landscaping will be nice, it isn't going to do too much to make the area more lively. People will use 17th to cut through the park, not stay, that is if there is anything on the other end that they will want to actually cut through to.

I hope I'm wrong on all this but I'm feeling disappointed by this project so far. I'm also quite disappointed in CMLC. They had such a hot start with the EV early on, but lately it's been disappointment and poor execution on their recent projects (Platform, BMO, Olympic Ave re-do, failure to get things rolling in EV, etc).
 
Im becoming convinced the complete lack of retail within the sphere of the saddledome has been intentional. like csec, the stampede and the city chipped in for a retail neutron bomb.

in the 40yrs since it opened the population of the city has tripled but somehow in the center of the city theres no (non casino) libations within a 10-15min walk.

almost like csec would prefer to sell you $13 beer rather than have the guy across the street do it.
 
I love the enthusiasm for including retail here guys, but there is zero market for retail there outside of the 10 days of Stampede and maybe Flames game days. I doubt this convention centre moves the needle enough to change that.

To be honest I thought this building was a terrible design from the get-go, but the massing is proving to look slightly better than expected - at least from Scotsman's Hill.
 
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