The history of the Sage Hill central activity centre is pretty interesting, and kind of explains how we ended up the way we did. It was first planned as part of the 2001 Symons Valley Area Structure Plan, which was put in place when Shaganappi Trail was still considered an expressway. Planning back then was ahead the policies of the MDP/CTP, but was starting to move in that direction, just not fully. High density was the plan, along with a central transit hub (which is still the plan on the parcel north of the Walmart), but it still took into account the planned expressways. So, interchanges were planned for Shaganappi / Symons Valley Parkway, with free flow slip lanes into and out of the hub.
This policy plan was taken a step further around 2006ish by Genesis who was the land owner, when they submitted a land use and outline plan that conformed to the ASP. Big density, big high speed roads. The concept was to include some big box suburban retail, an enclosed mall, and multiple highrise towers. Those of you who are also old timers on these forums like me may even remember this concept floating around from back then:
That is the Symons Valley Parkway running off on the left hand side of the screen, with the intersection with the intersection of 37th Street NW in the foreground, the view is looking NW. I found this image from a recent Council presentation where Spray Group was redesignating that highlighted corner up in the NE to allow some more suburban apartments:
Anyway, Genesis got the approval on their outline plan and land use, and proceeded with the first few phases, that being the suburban shopping centre. This meant that they needed to build out the road network as planned, so the roads went in, they landed Walmart as a lead tenant, and the shopping complex you see there today was mostly built out. However, then the global financial crisis hit, and development demand kind of dried up, and people realized that concrete high rise living at this scale was probably not financially feasible anymore, so the site sat with the remainder never realized. In the meantime, plannign policy changed, Shaganappi was reclassified as an Arterial as opposed to a Skeletal/Expressway, and the interchange plans were dropped.
In 2017-2018ish, Genesis came back and updated the zoning on the remaining parcels, to allow for what is now being built out, much more typical suburban style development with a stronger focus on residential. There is still quite a bit of density being built in the hub, just with wood frame condos as opposed to the concrete highrises.
Logel Homes has a few projects, as does
Anderson Builders Group. The transit hub parcel was purchased by The City, and they are moving forward with the
project, which will include the BRT hub, a permanent library (the current Sage Hilll one is a lease on a temporary basis) as well as a mix of affordable housing I think.
While the ASP was updated when Genesis rezoned, and some of the road classifications changed from Arterial to Collector, it didn't actually change the built form of the roads, so the remnants of the old plan still exist. Perhaps one day, as thousands of people live around what will hopefully be a major BRT hub, the City will come back and narrow some of the roads and create a more walkable environment than what is there now.
