The Hat Elbow River | 177.99m | 56s | Cidex Group | NORR

Travisty said:
No question this needs some work, a lot of work with Cidex. But, damn you are the negative Nancy of this site. Hopefully some light gets through under your rock.
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Haha I guess I have only been commenting on the projects I dislike and not on the ones I like. I actually like most of the current projects under construction. I think my absolute disdain for the arena is leaking into other projects. I think I’ll take a break from posting for a while.
 
Duck Lightning said:
Considering how unpopular the base was with the last city council I would expect that we see something new when this project does eventually come back to life
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Council has no input on the design of this (or any) building, other than setting urban design policies and then land use rules. This project has approval from the Calgary Planning Commission, so Cidex has the necessary permissions to build what is shown. It will be up to Cidex if they want to change the design, no one else.
 
The site isn't nearly as 'prime' as you might think. It is between two stroads, 700m from Sunterra, 1.6 km from Safeway or Superstore. It is on the river, but on a park it is not. The big old casino resort design on page 1 of the thread form 2006, 2007, with a bridge to Repsol and the River Pathway, now that was way closer to prime.

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The project as it is today is a pure density play. They recieved big bonusing for promising an affordable housing component. Look for this project to seek CMHC Rental Construction Financing Initiative - concessionary loans - on the affordability basis.
 
I wish the city would have purchased this land ages ago when it was cheap and just made it a nice little river side park. Steps down to the river like in the EV. Would have been sweet.
 
I think part of the problem is the parcel that they own. It's a really awkward shape and tbh my least favorite part is the parking lot north of the buildings. I wish they just owned the whole thing and built right up to the casino. Hopefully then they could have at least spread out the density and not needed to build a massive above grade parking structure.
 
They went back to the drawing board I believe, had to figure out how to get it under the new Inglewood bridge, CPR bridge and the MacDonald bridge without losing the traffic connection on 7st. I think the closure of 8st between Inglewood and Ramsay threw a wrench in the whole thing. That's all speculation on my part though...
 
It’s not a great site honestly stuck between the Macleods. Everything Cidex does seems to be a density play, I just wish this thing had a podium that looks and feels like Curtis Block along the North and south interfaces and that the riverfront would become a nice place to be. It’s the monolithic podium with poor materials for the podium that kills this thing. If it can do those things right I think it would be ok.
 
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