Shawnessy Station | 62.5m | 18s | Telsec I S2 Architecture

MichaelS

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Telsec is planning a TOD village development at Shawnessy Station, directly north of Superstore. Still early days, but some information on their website, and some massings:
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According to this article in the Herald, they are partnering with a residential developer for the 6 storey, residential over retail buildings:
 
Finally. I left Calgary in 2001. That site was being hyped as mixed use back then. I believe It used to be a city parks depot and a church. Construction of the interchange to the north messed up the road access.
 
Barf!? Something out of 2005. All that surface parking. Seems identical to the sloppy TOD built in Saddletowne. Calgary still hasn't figure out how to do a TOD the right way. This is just more suburban junk located next to a LRT station. It'll be great for ridership but outside of that its the typical stale crap Suburban developers push out. An isolated Plaza with parking and bunch of units and retail slapped in.
And yes I understand people need cars in the suburbs but how about investing in above grade parkades with street level retail designed in the form of a typical street(pedestrian sidewalks, trees, +1 lane added for street parking), effectively integrating with the Station? Jeez, surface parking should be banned for developments next to an LRT station, waste of space.
 
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I concur. The buildings are just conceptual placeholders, they could turn out ugly, or turn out like The Gramercy depending. The real shame is how Calgary has the area around the station designed. One side of the station suburban sprawl of single family homes, on the other side, a large parking lot, and a wide busy roadway separates you from more parking lots and big box stores. Pretty sad, but not unfixable.
 
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Impressive stuff! Really great that buildings are oriented towards surface parking lots, berms leading to on-ramps, or simply nothing at all.

Nothing says high-quality TOD like;
  • Cul-de-sac's,
  • CRU's oriented towards large surface parking lots,
  • Surface parking lots fronting the train station,
  • Apartments with a view of only expansive parking lots or highways,
  • the only 'plaza' or park space being the bounded in the centre of a cul-de-sac with three parking lot entrances, and
  • Building K being oriented directly towards the back of a Superstore loading dock.
Truly ground-breaking to see TOD that doubles as an Outlet Mall. Glad to see MDP and other policy goals and principles being adhered to by Administration and Council.
God forbid they take a look literally anywhere else at examples of Suburban TOD's that actually resemble TOD development like Orenco Station (that is old AF);
 
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Impressive stuff! Really great that buildings are oriented towards surface parking lots, berms leading to on-ramps, or simply nothing at all.

Nothing says high-quality TOD like;
  • Cul-de-sac's,
  • CRU's oriented towards large surface parking lots,
  • Surface parking lots fronting the train station,
  • Apartments with a view of only expansive parking lots or highways,
  • the only 'plaza' or park space being the bounded in the centre of a cul-de-sac with three parking lot entrances, and
  • Building K being oriented directly towards the back of a Superstore loading dock.
Truly ground-breaking to see TOD that doubles as an Outlet Mall. Glad to see MDP and other policy goals and principles being adhered to by Administration and Council.
God forbid they take a look literally anywhere else at examples of Suburban TOD's that actually resemble TOD development like Orenco Station (that is old AF);

SO. MUCH. SURFACE. PARKING.

Seems like such a miserable place to live - amazing to me that the rent on the upper residential units would cover the cost of construction.
 
I wondered what would become of that empty parcel. Right now there’s a random road going into it that does a little loop. The buses might use it but I’m not sure. This proposal is supremely awful. Then again I’m not sure how desirable this site will ever be considering its location sandwiched between Macleod, an overpass and the ass end of Superstore. Seems all the more reason to do something more interesting with a courtyard like they have in Westman Village.
 
Does anyone know if the project has been approved already? They just started doing some groundwork on the Phase 1 corner of the site. I sure hope that they didn't/don't get approval for the current design!
 
I might be completely wrong, but...

I saw that DP application too, but it seems to actually be for buildings D,E,F,G. The area shown on the DP map is where those buildings are on the map on Telsec's site. To be fair, the DP map could just have the wrong area shaded, but the other thing is that the first phase should only have 131 units instead of 169 on the DP...

This is just what I was thinking so apologies if this is not the actual case 😬
 
It looks like the groundbreaking will be soon as the DP was issued on Mar 31, and the updated brochure states groundbreaking in Spring of 2021. A few new pieces of equipment have been brought onto the site in the last few days though there doesn't seem to be much work going on at this time. Trico will be building this phase as the equipment brought to the site has Trico logos on it, and there is also a Trico sign that has been placed there (edit: I also just noticed the Trico logo in the brochure). IMO the design of these Phase 1 buildings looks quite decent, though the overall design of the whole TOD is definitely shitty. Nonetheless, I'm certainly looking forward to there finally being some real activity on this site as it has sat mostly idle ever since they got rid of the overflow parking lot and built the loop a few years back! Hopefully the other 2 parcels of this TOD will have DPs submitted for them sooner rather than later!

 
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It looks like the groundbreaking will be soon as the DP was issued on Mar 31, and the updated brochure states groundbreaking in Spring of 2021. A few new pieces of equipment have been brought onto the site in the last few days though there doesn't seem to be much work going on at this time. Trico will be building this phase as the equipment brought to the site has Trico logos on it, and there is also a Trico sign that has been placed there (edit: I also just noticed the Trico logo in the brochure). IMO the design of these Phase 1 buildings looks quite decent, though the overall design of the whole TOD is definitely shitty. Nonetheless, I'm certainly looking forward to there finally being some real activity on this site as it has sat mostly idle ever since they got rid of the overflow parking lot and built the loop a few years back! Hopefully the other 2 parcels of this TOD will have DPs submitted for them sooner rather than later!

Looks okay.. better than nothing
 

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