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

Do you support the proposal for the new arena?

  • Yes

    Votes: 91 65.5%

  • No

    Votes: 39 28.1%

  • Maybe

    Votes: 9 6.5%
  • Total voters
    139
Why did they stop horse racing at the Stampede Grounds? Seems like a no-brainer from a facilities stand-point, but I'm not a horse racing fan so I'm sure I'm missing something.
 
Is there any chance that they could combine a new CFL (and potentially soccer) stadium with the needs of the Stampede? Or do the dimensions of each just not work well together? It would be a perfect location for it.
 
Surrealplaces said:
The part of the Stampede grounds that's the most underutilized is the rodeo/chucks area. It's a once a year area, and doesn't handle many people, but takes up close to 1/2 the grounds. There's a bit of a connumdrum, as the rodeo is what drives the Stampede as a festival. The rest of the grounds is used throughout the year, and the Stampede can tweak those areas to get it more efficient.

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If there was ever a golden opportunity to move on from chuckwagons it was after those 2 missed years. Maybe after the next multi-horse massacre.

It's an ag festival, so you'll still need the barns. About half of the interior of the track is pretty well used for staging during the rodeo.

Removing the track would open up some interesting possibilities, but I'm not sure it would actually be a game changer. I think the existing grandstand is way better than McMahon so I'd love to see them build another across from it. People always talk about NIMBYs preventing concerts at McMahon, but it seems like that should be less of an issue at this location.
 
The OG stands at Lansdowne Park in Ottawa were around before they meaningfully updated the are for the Redblacks. They kept and slightly updated the old stands, and added a really nice south side - along with the rest of the redevelopment and park land along the canal.

I can totally see Calgary doing that with the Grandstand, the elbow river provides an almost identical interaction with the water.

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darwink said:
Would have to dig it up again, but in the 2026 Olympics facility study there was exploration of retrofitting a CFL stadium alongside the grandstand. Should be somewhere in other threads.
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I remember it involved replacing the infield with a new stand that included a semi-permanent upper tier. The upper tier would be removed during the Stampede.
 
I mean, how could we possibly use the Stampede lands any better? Between the BMO, Cowboys Casino, Saddledome, Stampede lands/buildings and areas that are geared towards surface parking for those events, we've only seemingly committed about 258 acres of inner-city, riverfront land to under-utilized surface parking to service occassionally used event space. I am also including the areas that are slated for 'future development' like the Anthem lands, the former Remington Railtown lands, the Cidex Elbow River lands, etc. Yes, i understand that they plan to build on at least some of these lands at some point. But good lord, how much prime, riverfront land do we need to commit to a 10-day rodeo, a convention centre and casino and a hockey arena? And shouldn't things like Platform be for just that? It's a huge hole in our urban fabric and we need to restrict the amount of land that becomes this single-use temporary parking to serve short term events.

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And as for the Stampede 'preserving and celebrating our Western heritage' maybe systematically bulldozing the historic community of East Victoria Park to turn the entire neighbourhood into gravel parking lots over the course of 50 years isn't exactly practicing what you preach. We need to actively restrict the size of the Stampede and it's grounds and the surface parking lots that have been created for it, because they have been swallowing up land and turning it into barren parking lot hellscapes with barely any sidewalks and limiting access to the river on prime land for long enough. I'm not even really a Stampede hater, i just think the impact the Stampede has had on our urban fabric has been very detrimental and they have created a 258-acre swath of temporary parking hell and have not been contained to a space or held accountable for this.
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Calgcouver said:
And as for the Stampede 'preserving and celebrating our Western heritage' maybe systematically bulldozing the historic community of East Victoria Park to turn the entire neighbourhood into gravel parking lots over the course of 50 years isn't exactly practicing what you preach. We need to actively restrict the size of the Stampede and it's grounds and the surface parking lots that have been created for it, because they have been swallowing up land and turning it into barren parking lot hellscapes with barely any sidewalks and limiting access to the river on prime land for long enough. I'm not even really a Stampede hater, i just think the impact the Stampede has had on our urban fabric has been very detrimental and they have created a 258-acre swath of temporary parking hell and have not been contained to a space or held accountable for this.
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I know people love to pin this on the Stampede but what happened to Vic Park is actually a result City of Calgary policy and some abortive attempts at urban renewal in the 60s and 70s. If the Stampede Board had their way, the grounds would now be located at Lincoln Park where MRC is - which IMO would have been a huge mistake! If you are interested, incomparable local historian Max Foran wrote an excellent book on the subject called Coalitions and Demolitions: The Destruction of Calgary’s East Victoria Park that dives into the subject in depth.

I'd like to see an extension of the Riverwalk through Stampede Park, additional tree planting, and improvements to the way the park interfaces with surrounding areas, but at the end of the day Stampede Park is always going to be a vast empty expanse for most of the year similar to Theresienwiese and that is absolutely fine. It's not like we are short of inner city development land in Calgary. 😂
 
To get back on topic with this thread does anyone know when the province will approve the funds they promised for this project? Also what do you want out of the lands around the arena that are potentially to be developed by CSEC? (Outside of a hotel of course)
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