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

[Silence&Motion]

The north side has 12th Ave, a few parking lots and the green line. The south has 17th Ave, a ton of parking in the Stampede Grounds and both the Red and Blue lines. Also parking to the north is planned to disappear in favour of developments over time (if we can convince the Stampede to let go of the Remington lands) while parking in the Stampede Grounds is all but assured to still exist far off into the future.

The NW corner is actually more directly accessible to Victoria Park Station (see below). It is also more accessible to City Hall station (closest Blue Line station) and the future Green Line station. The BMO centre stands directly in between 17th ave and the Event Centre. Getting from 17th ave to the plaza will not be straightforward at all and involve a lot of twists and turns, and walking for more than a block along the side of a hostile convention centre. Meanwhile, ,people walking to the area from the Beltline, Downtown, East Village, Inglewood/Ramsey will all be passing through 12 Ave. That includes drivers who park in the East Village parking garage.

As you mention, there is way more development potential in the north. In fact, one of four corners of the NW intersection is already developed. That's a good thing. The plaza will fail if it's surrounded by parking lots. With all those parking lots in the south, plus the loading docks for the BMO centre, I anticipate that the plaza will often serve as a de facto parking lot itself, which is what you can see here occurring at Toronto's Scotiabank Arena.

 

[MichaelS]

The development map link for the DP drawings still appears to be broken. Did anyone here manage to download the full set, and have a way of putting a link up the rest of us can access them at? Thanks.

 

[adamyyc]

I think the limestone facade could look great, although I think it looks odd in the area above the SW entry (where the "Calgary Event Centre" signage is), and would look better in areas if some of the other facade materials were different colours.

I like the windows with the aluminum fins, and actually think they should incorporate more of this along the upper part of the west side of the building, and reduce the perforated white metal paneling.

I don’t like the mechanical and screening on the west side of the building (it would be nice if they could hide this in a less prominent location of the building).

The NW entrance is probably the most promising part of the building, and it’s not all that exciting. The SW entrance is a mess.

The parking garage should straight-up be buried, and there should be a plaza above it, but there’s no way that will happen given the project is already over budget and burying the parking garage won’t make the Flames any more money.

The streets along the north and west sides of the building should be woonerfs with pavers rather than asphalt (think EV), and should be closed on game days to form part of the plaza. It doesn’t feel like there will be great opportunities to create an experience for fans who want to watch the game outside the arena during a Flames playoff game (e.g., Maple Leaf Square / Jurassic Park), which I think is a missed opportunity.

Two of the sides of the building are completely sterile (south and east), and the north side of the building is also pretty bland. The building effectively turns its back on the Stampede grounds. There are no redeeming qualities to the south and east sides of the building. I think it’s ok if the building has one sterile wall (probably the east wall), but I think it’s a mistake not to make the south side of the building more appealing at the pedestrian level.

Overall, this is disappointing. It probably would be ok if it was in a more urban setting (think Bell Centre, Scotia Bank Arena, etc.), but given it’s located in a wide open area and will be surrounded by vacant land for the foreseeable future, it would have been nice to see some groundbreaking architecture, rather than a bland, incohesive box.

 

[darwink]

All depends on the economic viability of screen buildings next to BMO, and infill buildings south of the event centre. It could certainly sit as parking for a long time.
That view of Toronto's square is recent:

Here it is in 2002:

By 2007 the immediate parking lots were gone:

 

[JonnyCanuck]

I don't pretend to know much about urban planning, nor do most people who 'voted' on the event center design. They were looking exclusively at the building and it's functionality rather than the potential ambiance (or lack thereof) surrounding it. The missed opportunity as I see it is activating the north side along 12 Ave and west side Olympic Way, by integrating retail/hospitality/entertainment venues. Instead we have mostly walls, some windows (looking outside to what?), concrete walkways with trees and a few benches. Hardly what I would call creating ambiance or a visual experience. I am sure that ambiance/activation was not what CSEC was intending to create. All they care about is what goes on inside the building. Someone at the city or CMLC should have presented that overall vision. Perhaps they did in some initial designs and it was ignored. Who knows?

 

[Duck Lightning]

I think the limestone facade could look great, although I think it looks odd in the area above the SW entry (where the "Calgary Event Centre" signage is), and would look better in areas if some of the other facade materials were different colours.

I like the windows with the aluminum fins, and actually think they should incorporate more of this along the upper part of the west side of the building, and reduce the perforated white metal paneling.

I don’t like the mechanical and screening on the west side of the building (it would be nice if they could hide this in a less prominent location of the building).

The NW entrance is probably the most promising part of the building, and it’s not all that exciting. The SW entrance is a mess.

The parking garage should straight-up be buried, and there should be a plaza above it, but there’s no way that will happen given the project is already over budget and burying the parking garage won’t make the Flames any more money.

The streets along the north and west sides of the building should be woonerfs with pavers rather than asphalt (think EV), and should be closed on game days to form part of the plaza. It doesn’t feel like there will be great opportunities to create an experience for fans who want to watch the game outside the arena during a Flames playoff game (e.g., Maple Leaf Square / Jurassic Park), which I think is a missed opportunity.

Two of the three sides of the building are completely sterile (south and east), and the north side of the building is also pretty bland. The building effectively turns its back on the Stampede grounds. There are no redeeming qualities to the south and east sides of the building. I think it’s ok if the building has one sterile wall (probably the east wall), but I think it’s a mistake not to make the south side of the building more appealing at the pedestrian level.

Overall, this is disappointing. It probably would be ok if it was in a more urban setting (think Bell Centre, Scotia Bank Arena, etc.), but given it’s located in a wide open area and will be surrounded by vacant land for the foreseeable future, it would have been nice to see some groundbreaking architecture, rather than a bland, in cohesive box.

Stampede Trail (and 14th Ave) is reportedly being designed to be shut down to vehicle traffic between 12th Ave and 17th Ave during events. 5th street will serve vehicle access during these times. Whether this works will depend on what they do with the original plaza planned to the south and if they plan to keep the excessive amount of foliage along the event plazas southern edge.

 

[CBBarnett]

The parking garage should straight-up be buried, and there should be a plaza above it, but there’s no way that will happen given the project is already over budget and burying the parking garage won’t make the Flames any more money.

Of many problems, the above-grade parkade is the most inexcusable from both a design and process perspective. The public has now subsidized two competing parking authorities (CSEC and Stampede) within a few blocks as part of this deal, competing directly with an expensive publicly-owned parking structure in East Village (Platform), which had a weak enough business case already. Now we have paid for 3 parking facilities in the past few years in the area, not to mention the longer-term subsidization of the Stampede's lands and it's oversupply of parking. Except for the expensive East Village parkade, the public will not receive revenue from the others we paid for.

More broadly, all this subsidization directly contradicts the (alleged) rationale of any of this effort in the first place - redevelopment and creating urban vibrancy. For the arena itself, the above-grade parkade results in the building being pushed north towards 12th Ave, making the at-grade interaction reduced to almost nothing beyond a nice sidewalk and a blank wall. So in the name of redevelopment, the public paid for a building that doesn't interact well with the majority of anticipated redevelopment on many of it's sides and created lucrative, subsidized parking revenue streams for two powerful stakeholders with little redevelopment experience or interest.

Is it better designed than the Saddledome? of course, particularly the inside (obviously, given the whole objective of CSEC). Is it a good design? Not really. It's the 2021 equivalent of a 1980s stadium scheme in a shiny new package.

The whole orientation to the SW corner as the main entrance reveals the same old bias won out - despite the lofty rhetoric about how things will be different this time, the stakeholders involved are imagining the arena as part of this mega-events district where 10 days a year there's a big event at both the convention centre and arena so we should orientate the whole site to support that. 355 days a year we get a blank wall towards the future community and subsidizes parking lots so those stakeholders can keep a bit of revenue coming in when they don't host events.

 

[Duck Lightning]

I don't pretend to know much about urban planning, nor do most people who 'voted' on the event center design. They were looking exclusively at the building and it's functionality rather than the potential ambiance (or lack thereof) surrounding it. The missed opportunity as I see it is activating the north side along 12 Ave and west side Olympic Way, by integrating retail/hospitality/entertainment venues. Instead we have mostly walls, some windows (looking outside to what?), concrete walkways with trees and a few benches. Hardly what I would call creating ambiance or a visual experience. I am sure that ambiance/activation was not what CSEC was intending to create. All they care about is what goes on inside the building. Someone at the city or CMLC should have presented that overall vision. Perhaps they did in some initial designs and it was ignored. Who knows?

The renders have patios along the west side facing Stampede Trail. The windows are to let in light during the day and let out light during the night.

 

[darwink]

I don't pretend to know much about urban planning, nor do most people who 'voted' on the event center design. They were looking exclusively at the building and it's functionality rather than the potential ambiance (or lack thereof) surrounding it. The missed opportunity as I see it is activating the north side along 12 Ave and west side Olympic Way, by integrating retail/hospitality/entertainment venues. Instead we have mostly walls, some windows (looking outside to what?), concrete walkways with trees and a few benches. Hardly what I would call creating ambiance or a visual experience. I am sure that ambiance/activation was not what CSEC was intending to create. All they care about is what goes on inside the building. Someone at the city or CMLC should have presented that overall vision. Perhaps they did in some initial designs and it was ignored. Who knows?

I suspect that more retail was in the end squeezed out through site constraints (which became more apprarent with the switch to conventional bowl) and cost savings. There are electrical rooms and generators on the 12th ave side at ground level. Having them at ground level will save big $ - underground you need access and venting but flood protection so you might not even gain back much retail space. Above ground level you need increasingly constrained space as the bowl grows, plus support for the weight.

 

[darwink]

Of many problems, the above-grade parkade is the most inexcusable from both a design and process perspective. The public has now subsidized two competing parking authorities (CSEC and Stampede) within a few blocks as part of this deal, competing directly with an expensive publicly-owned parking structure in East Village (Platform), which had a weak enough business case already. Now we have paid for 3 parking facilities in the past few years in the area, not to mention the longer-term subsidization of the Stampede's lands and it's oversupply of parking. Except for the expensive East Village parkade, the public will not receive revenue from the others we paid for.

More broadly, all this subsidization directly contradicts the (alleged) rationale of any of this effort in the first place - redevelopment and creating urban vibrancy. For the arena itself, the above-grade parkade results in the building being pushed north towards 12th Ave, making the at-grade interaction reduced to almost nothing beyond a nice sidewalk and a blank wall. So in the name of redevelopment, the public paid for a building that doesn't interact well with the majority of anticipated redevelopment on many of it's sides and created lucrative, subsidized parking revenue streams for two powerful stakeholders with little redevelopment experience or interest.

Is it better designed than the Saddledome? of course, particularly the inside (obviously, given the whole objective of CSEC). Is it a good design? Not really. It's the 2021 equivalent of a 1980s stadium scheme in a shiny new package.

The whole orientation to the SW corner as the main entrance reveals the same old bias won out - despite the lofty rhetoric about how things will be different this time, the stakeholders involved are imagining the arena as part of this mega-events district where 10 days a year there's a big event at both the convention centre and arena so we should orientate the whole site to support that. 355 days a year we get a blank wall towards the future community and subsidizes parking lots so those stakeholders can keep a bit of revenue coming in when they don't host events.

How many spots is the parkade?

The orientation certain belays the 'parking first' mentality of the site plan.

 

[Duck Lightning]

Of many problems, the above-grade parkade is the most inexcusable from both a design and process perspective. The public has now subsidized two competing parking authorities (CSEC and Stampede) within a few blocks as part of this deal, competing directly with an expensive publicly-owned parking structure in East Village (Platform), which had a weak enough business case already. Now we have paid for 3 parking facilities in the past few years in the area, not to mention the longer-term subsidization of the Stampede's lands and it's oversupply of parking. Except for the expensive East Village parkade, the public will not receive revenue from the others we paid for.

More broadly, all this subsidization directly contradicts the (alleged) rationale of any of this effort in the first place - redevelopment and creating urban vibrancy. For the arena itself, the above-grade parkade results in the building being pushed north towards 12th Ave, making the at-grade interaction reduced to almost nothing beyond a nice sidewalk and a blank wall. So in the name of redevelopment, the public paid for a building that doesn't interact well with the majority of anticipated redevelopment on many of it's sides and created lucrative, subsidized parking revenue streams for two powerful stakeholders with little redevelopment experience or interest.

Is it better designed than the Saddledome? of course, particularly the inside (obviously, given the whole objective of CSEC). Is it a good design? Not really. It's the 2021 equivalent of a 1980s stadium scheme in a shiny new package.

The whole orientation to the SW corner as the main entrance reveals the same old bias won out - despite the lofty rhetoric about how things will be different this time, the stakeholders involved are imagining the arena as part of this mega-events district where 10 days a year there's a big event at both the convention centre and arena so we should orientate the whole site to support that. 355 days a year we get a blank wall towards the future community and subsidizes parking lots so those stakeholders can keep a bit of revenue coming in when they don't host events.

Parking was talked about rather early on by city council. It was concluded that the site has enough parking nearby at the moment but that a parkade had to be built in the future to accommodate the lost parking from development of the surrounding lands. Also CSEC insisted that the arena have a parking structure because it's commonplace among other arenas around the league. So both sides agreed that a parkade had to be built.

 

[adamyyc]

I'm just going to say it, is it too late to bring back CalgaryNext?

 

[JonnyCanuck]

I suspect that more retail was in the end squeezed out through site constraints (which became more apprarent with the switch to conventional bowl) and cost savings. There are electrical rooms and generators on the 12th ave side at ground level. Having them at ground level will save big $ - underground you need access and venting but flood protection so you might not even gain back much retail space. Above ground level you need increasingly constrained space as the bowl grows, plus support for the weight.

I defer to your knowledge of construction and civil engineering. That sounds like a reasonable explanation to me.

 

[Duck Lightning]

Also remember that Victoria Park is in the River District CRL.

 

[darwink]

I defer to your knowledge of construction and civil engineering. That sounds like a reasonable explanation to me.

But it comes back to: if they hadn't built the parkade, or had decided to modify the parkade, generators and electrical rooms could go over there.