The Fifth | 17m | 5s | Arlington Street | NORR

Makarov said:
The strip mall and Shell station (especially) on the South side of 17th Avenue basically kill any urban feel, no?
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It's a weird hard line on the map - on the northside you have some of the most human-centric urban environment between Vancouver and Toronto. Permanently busy patios all day and all year round, restaurants and thousands of daily pedestrians surrounded by high-density for blocks. Not all of it is pretty (and the sidewalks are too narrow everywhere) but by any qualitative or quantitative measure, it's truly urban - this building really pushes that feeling up a notch.

Cross to the southside and you have two suburban, car-oriented 1970s vintage sites. The neighbourhood in behind (Cliff Bungalow) is dense and filled with apartments and low-rises, very urban by our standards. It might not seem like it but most blocks in Cliff Bungalow hit 100 people / hectare (about 2-3x the density of the average block in South Calgary despite all those infills, for example). It's partially why there's so much pedestrian traffic crossing north-south at that intersection. Off main street density is really overlooked to support these urban places - but perhaps that's another post...

I would argue apart from the few remaining car-oriented uses, the area and a few other corners nearby (8th and 17th etc.) it's about as urban feeling as we have. Redevelop those two, widen the sidewalks and reprogram 17th Ave to reflect it's urban reality (e.g. narrow it, close it more regularly on weekends or for festivals/summer patios etc.) and that's about all that's left to do to get it to maximum level :)
 
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Steel framing starting on the bottom and HVAC arrived on top just now:
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CBBarnett said:
It's a weird hard line on the map - on the northside you have some of the most human-centric urban environment between Vancouver and Toronto. Permanently busy patios all day and all year round, restaurants and thousands of daily pedestrians surrounded by high-density for blocks. Not all of it is pretty (and the sidewalks are too narrow everywhere) but by any qualitative or quantitative measure, it's truly urban - this building really pushes that feeling up a notch.

Cross to the southside and you have two suburban, car-oriented 1970s vintage sites. The neighbourhood in behind (Cliff Bungalow) is dense and filled with apartments and low-rises, very urban by our standards. It might not seem like it but most blocks in Cliff Bungalow hit 100 people / hectare (about 2-3x the density of the average block in South Calgary despite all those infills, for example). It's partially why there's so much pedestrian traffic crossing north-south at that intersection. Off main street density is really overlooked to support these urban places - but perhaps that's another post...

I would argue apart from the few remaining car-oriented uses, the area and a few other corners nearby (8th and 17th etc.) it's about as urban feeling as we have. Redevelop those two, widen the sidewalks and reprogram 17th Ave to reflect it's urban reality (e.g. narrow it, close it more regularly on weekends or for festivals/summer patios etc.) and that's about all that's left to do to get it to maximum level :)
Click to expand...

maybe the next 30yr do over in 30yrs that shuts down the street for 3yrs. 😕
 
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