West 17 | 35.05m | 10s | Truman | NORR

It’s mostly bang on to the rendering, except for one part, the bridge of glass on the seventh and eighth floor. On the rendering it’s all glass, but in real life it’s part glass, part panelling.

Overall when this is done, it will look okay especially with a few trees around the base.
 
1E8BAC9E-5202-4252-8C9A-C1F20A349D8B.jpeg
8FD352DC-5442-400D-8699-85D488C87A98.jpeg
 
Building and corner look great, will make a nice addition and some serious new housing supply in an area that hasn't seen a building this large in decades. All good things

This is alley/main street interface is disappointing though:

1672338631778.png


A big ugly power-box, surface parking, and alley access onto 17th Avenue, the main street. A consistent street wall is now impossible - the distance between the building on the left and right is much greater than the distance of the previous development that the new building replace.

A slush-free sidewalk is also now impossible as we maintained the alley access off the main street. For decades into the future we will still have a sloped sidewalk toward 17 Avenue, ready to splash pedestrians and create slippery walking conditions. Every winter slushing dirty snow will be clogging up the sidewalk here, and as happens on many blocks every winter - property owners start to lose track of who's job it is to keep that sidewalk/alley interface clean. (You may be able to tell I have been walking around recently and been disappointed in pedestrian winter maintainance in this city).

I get the alley was a pre-existing condition, but disappointing that we can't change the condition despite a $50M+ private investment in the tower and $30M+ in public investment in the main street public realm of 17 Avenue.

Here's what a pedestrian-focused cities would do.

St. Laurent Blvd in Montreal example:
1672340045477.png

Note, there's hardly an alley access onto the street at all, so I am using a street intersection for example. The gap in the street wall on the main street is smaller for a road in Montreal than the alley-induced gap on 17 Avenue. A raised crosswalk for pedestrians and a strange lack of power-boxes or duplicative poles by Calgary standards. Instead of where we would put a power box, Montreal has a planter bed and some patio seating.

Does Montreal not have delivery vehicles, garbage trucks, fire trucks and snow plows? This design works just fine and would fit all of Calgary's vehicles that need excessive alley right-of-ways
Perhaps Montreal is too cherry-picked, that block is a century older than 17th Ave and predates modern city issues and designs. Fair points. Let's try elsewhere with a more contemporary design.

Vancouver example:
1672341064664.png

Generous wide sidewalk, minimal sloping vehicle ramp. The buildings enclose on the vehicle access to minimize the break in the street wall. No power boxes or poles in the way anywhere. Even Vancouver's construction debris is more organized, tucked neatly on the fringe of the road, well out of the way of pedestrians.

The problem is never there isn't enough money to create a great public, pedestrian-friendly environment in Calgary. For this West 17 development we timed a street rebuild via the main streets work with a significant private redevelopment - it's as good of an opportunity to address stupid issues like alley interfaces/power box locations as we will ever get. Yet we came up short again.

This is hardly Calgary's worst example of this kind of thing (this is), and the development is still overwhelmingly a better thing for the main street and sidewalks in the area - but it's just not good enough. We have to do better when we have the perfect opportunity to address these issues because 99% of the time we won't be able to justify the cost of addressing them until the next full street redevelopment/rebuild in 50+ years.
 
CBBarnett said:
Building and corner look great, will make a nice addition and some serious new housing supply in an area that hasn't seen a building this large in decades. All good things

This is alley/main street interface is disappointing though:

View attachment 447610

A big ugly power-box, surface parking, and alley access onto 17th Avenue, the main street. A consistent street wall is now impossible - the distance between the building on the left and right is much greater than the distance of the previous development that the new building replace.

A slush-free sidewalk is also now impossible as we maintained the alley access off the main street. For decades into the future we will still have a sloped sidewalk toward 17 Avenue, ready to splash pedestrians and create slippery walking conditions. Every winter slushing dirty snow will be clogging up the sidewalk here, and as happens on many blocks every winter - property owners start to lose track of who's job it is to keep that sidewalk/alley interface clean. (You may be able to tell I have been walking around recently and been disappointed in pedestrian winter maintainance in this city).

I get the alley was a pre-existing condition, but disappointing that we can't change the condition despite a $50M+ private investment in the tower and $30M+ in public investment in the main street public realm of 17 Avenue.

Here's what a pedestrian-focused cities would do.

St. Laurent Blvd in Montreal example:
View attachment 447614
Note, there's hardly an alley access onto the street at all, so I am using a street intersection for example. The gap in the street wall on the main street is smaller for a road in Montreal than the alley-induced gap on 17 Avenue. A raised crosswalk for pedestrians and a strange lack of power-boxes or duplicative poles by Calgary standards. Instead of where we would put a power box, Montreal has a planter bed and some patio seating.

Does Montreal not have delivery vehicles, garbage trucks, fire trucks and snow plows? This design works just fine and would fit all of Calgary's vehicles that need excessive alley right-of-ways
Perhaps Montreal is too cherry-picked, that block is a century older than 17th Ave and predates modern city issues and designs. Fair points. Let's try elsewhere with a more contemporary design.

Vancouver example:
View attachment 447616
Generous wide sidewalk, minimal sloping vehicle ramp. The buildings enclose on the vehicle access to minimize the break in the street wall. No power boxes or poles in the way anywhere. Even Vancouver's construction debris is more organized, tucked neatly on the fringe of the road, well out of the way of pedestrians.

The problem is never there isn't enough money to create a great public, pedestrian-friendly environment in Calgary. For this West 17 development we timed a street rebuild via the main streets work with a significant private redevelopment - it's as good of an opportunity to address stupid issues like alley interfaces/power box locations as we will ever get. Yet we came up short again.

This is hardly Calgary's worst example of this kind of thing (this is), and the development is still overwhelmingly a better thing for the main street and sidewalks in the area - but it's just not good enough. We have to do better when we have the perfect opportunity to address these issues because 99% of the time we won't be able to justify the cost of addressing them until the next full street redevelopment/rebuild in 50+ years.
Click to expand...


It's kinda funny considering Truman's other, better, examples

gateway-exterior-building-day-21_edit.jpg
truman_esquire_condos_south_6.jpg
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top