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

Do you support the proposal for the new arena?

  • Yes

    Votes: 90 65.2%

  • No

    Votes: 39 28.3%

  • Maybe

    Votes: 9 6.5%
  • Total voters
    138
Can’t say anything else that hasn’t been said. As of now based on renderings I give this project a generous 6/10. Bland, boring, in-cohesive design that was slightly improved upon from the initial release. Materials may be able to raise this to a 7/10, but as it stands, it’s a glorified box with tons of tacky shit stuck all over it. The only part I really like is the west side facade, minus the part where the white ribbon starts.

The pedestrian realm is fairly decent and actually pretty impressive when you consider most other arenas in North America. I think CSEC did a decent job of tweaking this aspect and improving it from the first renderings. However, it falls short from what they had originally promised/envisioned. I don’t feel this arena will transform the entertainment district and it certainly won’t be the showpiece of the district. My only hope is that all the development on the surrounding land will compensate for this lame excuse of an arena.

We have yet to see interior renderings but I’m not holding my breath on those being any good. I’m already disappointed with the sideways staircases in the lower bowl and not a fan of the capacity or how the decks have been arranged.

I’m short we missed the boat on building the arena. This should have been built a few years back when costs were lower and the city/team had more money to spend. We dragged our heels and now we are stuck with a much improved but forgettable arena that could have been a lot better.
 
I wonder if the previous rendering may with massive overhangs and the huge social stair could have worked with the big bowl design with enough land — without costing $100 million more to construct.
 
darwink said:
I wonder if the previous rendering may with massive overhangs and the huge social stair could have worked with the big bowl design with enough land — without costing $100 million more to construct.
Click to expand...
It definitely could have as long as they dropped the parkade out of the design. In fact without the parkade the current design wouldn't be as limited because the north side would no longer be pressed up against the street which results in the arena's current square shape. Without the parkade the arena wouldn't have to be as tall to fit in the same capacity in the same configuration because the current design results in the top seating deck being cut off on the south side to fit the parkade:
Parkade_cut_off.png
 
I still maintain if they ditched the parkade they would have a lot more room to play around with the design and layout as mentioned above. God that parkade just drives me nuts. It's almost unforgivable and such a needless thing.

HOK should have never been selected. Populous should have been picked so that they could have designed it to flow better with the BMO centre. Sigh....such a disappointment.
 
The debate over the parkade was one of main things that got CMLC tossed from what I understand. My guess is CMLC was pushing many of the same points that have been brought up in this thread.

In my opinion the Flames should have worked to have their parkade included as part of the hotel project that is planned for the area and then linked the parkade to the arena via a tunnel. This is inspired by what was done with the ALT Hotel in East Village where the hotel operators presented a case that they didn't need the number of parking stalls required by parking minimums because most guests arrive via taxi and so the majority of the parking stalls were turned over to serve as a CPA parkade. Pursuing this solution would have allowed for a better arena design as well as accelerated construction of a hotel for the area. Win-win
 
the ALT hotel in EV actually pushed to include more parking, with the expressed purpose of running a CPA lot. The City would have been more than happy to relax the number of parking stalls for them.
 
I'm not minding the roofline of this view, it's a tip of the hat to the old Stampede Corral...
2021-11-02_135737.jpg
 
I'm assuming this is the final tweak to the design, and if so, is construction going to start soon?
 
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