Scotia Place | 36.85m | 11s | CSEC | HOK

[Mountain Man]

The problem with floor to ceiling glass, is most of it will likely be covered by blinds or curtains if there is a restaurant inside. The Limestone does have a sandstone look, so that's ok with me. This building is a 6.5/10 currently, if well constructed and executed, it could make a 7.5 at best. It's all about the inside now, that's where we need some renders!

 

[Silence&Motion]

Speaking of Toronto, I found it awkward that the critic brought up the detailing of Maple Leaf Gardens, to make a point about the importance of the small stuff, but was kind of dismissive about the idea of including indigenous pictographs. Also, I love Maple Leaf Gardens. It’s a shrine to hockey. But I think we’re idealizing it’s architecture just a bit, and it’s not as if Calgary is going to build an Art Deco arena with ornate detailing on every surface. That’s not something Calgary can pull off, so the CEC will have to be painted with a broader brush.

This is what Maple Leaf Gardens looked like at street level prior to becoming a grocery store. Not exactly something to aspire to.

Other than that, I think the critique is spot on. It is "an awkward composition" with no coherence; just some "flashy bits" thrown up to disguise its bulk. I also understand Bozikovic's skepticism about the Indigenous pictographs. I think these could be interpreted as a meaningless attempt to "art wash" a blank wall rather than representing any actual connection to First Nations communities. But that's not for me or Bozikovic to decide.

 

[Surrealplaces]

I think much of the criticism is fair, but to be honest, I'm not overly concerned about it. My biggest concerns for the design leading up to this point were:
-Street frontage on Olympic way
-Street frontage on 12th ave
-Look and feel of the interior, can it support regular concerts.

I really like the street frontage on Olympic way, and I think the frontage on 12th is now decent after these recent tweaks. I don't know about the inside yet as we haven't seen renderings, but I suspect it'll be solid, like most arenas are. I'm not liking those sideways stairs at the lower level, but outside of that it should be good.

Overall, the design definitely could have a more overall cohesive look, like the Rogers arena, or Barclay's Place, T-Mobile, etc.. but the street frontage was a higher priority for me, and the street frontage beats any of those other arenas. I wish the arena overall look had more cohesion, but I won't lose any sleep over it. A monolithic unfriendly wall along Olympic Way would have caused me to lose sleep.

 

[1875]

completey agree, of course anything built could be better and in this case it was shocking to me how the original design disregarded all sides of the building but one. opening up the north and east salvages what would have been a pretty miserable “neighbour” as it was put.

this building goes a long way to getting us to a destination event center and looking at the saddledome sitting alone in a sea of pavement the improvement will be massive.

in 40yrs when the population has doubled again maybe then we get an arena on par with the largest markets in the world. until that time this works for me.

 

[Patrick.1980]

I agree about the frontage on Olympic ave. It's the most important of the 4 four sides, and they did a good job on its design. Development can happen on the west side of Olympic, and on the blocks leading north toward East Village, and if the development has decent street frontage it'll be a busy vibrant corridor, especially at times of events.

 

[1875]

with the green line project starting up id like the the city to look at expanding the free ride zone a stop further out on all lines.

improving the urban realm could be advanced greatly if its possible to move around from sunnyside to the arena or inglewood, sunalta, bridgeland to the arena at no cost. or at least implement a zone system for our transport so two stops doesnt cost the same as 20 stops.

the goal should be easing traffic congestion and parking requirements in the area while enticing more people to use the system.

 

[Surrealplaces]

If we can get good development along the stretches I've marked in green, Olympic Way will have a nice synergy with East Village, and will do just fine as a retail corridor. Whatever gets built on those strips will need to have multiple CRU's and hopefully isn't three blocks of large continuous podiums due to being part of multi tower projects. I suspect that's what will happen, but I'd prefer the lots to be broken up into smaller individual parcels, with small to mid-sized developments on them.

 

[1875]

ideally id like to see that block north of the event center be built with a laneway similar to what theyve done with the park central towers. open it up for more possible CRUs between the green line station and the arena.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

Has anyone seen an overall site plan for the northern part of Stampede Park-ing lot (Events Centre, Convention Centre, etc.) What's the flow like from the train stations to the arena and Olympic Way? I'd actually like to see 5th St. become the main way to get in and out of Stampede Park (once an underpass is built under the tracks), it would be great to see Olympic Way from 12th to 14 Ave be pedestrian only. I can imagine it just being jammed with cars driving into Stampede Park-ing lot and I wouldn't really enjoy spending any time outside the arena amongst a bunch of idling cars..

 

[CalgaryTiger]

Has anyone seen an overall site plan for the northern part of Stampede Park-ing lot (Events Centre, Convention Centre, etc.) What's the flow like from the train stations to the arena and Olympic Way? I'd actually like to see 5th St. become the main way to get in and out of Stampede Park (once an underpass is built under the tracks), it would be great to see Olympic Way from 12th to 14 Ave be pedestrian only. I can imagine it just being jammed with cars driving into Stampede Park-ing lot and I wouldn't really enjoy spending any time outside the arena amongst a bunch of idling cars..

If you use your imagination you can see how they intend for people to access the events centre. From Victoria Park Stampede Station; they'll simply go north around the casino or south around the convention centre. From 4th St. Station they'll likely walk down 5th St.

 

[Urb]

Here's an excerpt from the Rivers District Master Plan:

 

[Urb]

and here's the link to the full document if anyone wants more info:

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e74e21656bca46a666bdd02/t/5ee8f8d40b33bb3e09f8aa59/1592326410016/RiversDistrictMasterPlan.pdf

 

[Tarsus]

Has anyone seen an overall site plan for the northern part of Stampede Park-ing lot (Events Centre, Convention Centre, etc.) What's the flow like from the train stations to the arena and Olympic Way? I'd actually like to see 5th St. become the main way to get in and out of Stampede Park (once an underpass is built under the tracks), it would be great to see Olympic Way from 12th to 14 Ave be pedestrian only. I can imagine it just being jammed with cars driving into Stampede Park-ing lot and I wouldn't really enjoy spending any time outside the arena amongst a bunch of idling cars..

5th street would be good, but given the design of the arena, with the main façade looking onto Olympic Way, it'll become the main avenue into the Stampede, as it has been for the past years. Olympic Way also run adjacent to the new BMO centre, and it curls around heading to 17th ave entrance.

 

[outoftheice]

I know I'm late to the party on this one but count me in the camp that remains disappointed in the revised design. CSEC gets points for making a few changes to how the north and east sides interact with the public realm but for the most part these changes are lipstick on a pig. To me this is the same trap the City of Calgary fell into with the Green Line where they created a set budget eary on in the process with little detailed design work to back it up and are now scrambling to force the project to fit into the budget instead of revising the budget to support the desired project outcome.

I don't think the building as designed will accomplish the main project goal that was used to justify public investment in this project... which was a building that would anchor a 24/7 vibrant entertainment district that would draw people from across the city. I think my biggest disappointments are how sterile the public gather place on the SW corner appears to be and the fact that the northern edge requires bollards and stairs between the sidewalk and the building.

I also think this fancy projection system they are now touting on the big blank wall is pretty sad. No chance those projections show up in the daylight which means anyone attending an event in the spring, summer and early fall will just see a giant blank wall. I think they would have been far better off taking a page out of the SAIT parkade book by a creating an image that would be designed into the wall that would create visual interest regardless of the amount of daylight present and could then be accented in the evening with a great lighting display.

At the end of the day to me this looks like a project where they blew their budget and instead of designing a beautiful building with a cohesive design they designed a basic box and then stuck a bunch of crap on it for the lowest price possible to try and hide the fact they designed a big basic box.

 

[Roaring Flames]

I know I'm late to the party on this one but count me in the camp that remains disappointed in the revised design. CSEC gets points for making a few changes to how the north and east sides interact with the public realm but for the most part these changes are lipstick on a pig. To me this is the same trap the City of Calgary fell into with the Green Line where they created a set budget eary on in the process with little detailed design work to back it up and are now scrambling to force the project to fit into the budget instead of revising the budget to support the desired project outcome.

I don't think the building as designed will accomplish the main project goal that was used to justify public investment in this project... which was a building that would anchor a 24/7 vibrant entertainment district that would draw people from across the city. I think my biggest disappointments are how sterile the public gather place on the SW corner appears to be and the fact that the northern edge requires bollards and stairs between the sidewalk and the building.

I also think this fancy projection system they are now touting on the big blank wall is pretty sad. No chance those projections show up in the daylight which means anyone attending an event in the spring, summer and early fall will just see a giant blank wall. I think they would have been far better off taking a page out of the SAIT parkade book by a creating an image that would be designed into the wall that would create visual interest regardless of the amount of daylight present and could then be accented in the evening with a great lighting display.

At the end of the day to me this looks like a project where they blew their budget and instead of designing a beautiful building with a cohesive design they designed a basic box and then stuck a bunch of crap on it for the lowest price possible to try and hide the fact they designed a big basic box.

View attachment 359806

The plaza looks sterile at first but you have to remember that the trees and foliage have been hidden in these renders so that you can see the building. Realistically the projections will only be visible from the SW and NW corners because of trees unless the projections are also on the North and East sides