West District | ?m | ?s | Truman

kora said:
Can't wait to tour this one when I visit Calgary. Only real downside is its remote location with little transit. Of course, not a problem for those who get around by car, which I imagine will be most residents.
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With the quantity of nearby and highly walkable retail, it will have far fewer car trips than previous generations of suburbs I think.

School and work are obviously big trip categories for much of the population - most of that will happen outside the community, mostly by vehicle given the remote location - but all other trips are going to be very short.

Under 1km walking distance to 3 full grocery stores (with a reasonably pleasant quality walk by suburban strip mall standards) is pretty remarkable for a fringe of the city build, probably actually only surpassed by Beltline in grocery store density. Seton, NE and North suburban builds have nothing comparable.

Obviously the West District development is intentionally trying to be walkable and dense within it, but a lot of credit goes to the unusually small and incremental subdivision process (and high incomes) of the overall area. The result was a fairly tight clustering of developments, often with interesting attention to details, and way more mixing of uses on 85th Street than would be seen including had the area been built out as a more typical mega-master planned subdivision.

Nothing will solve the remoteness of the neighbourhood overall, but it does make a fairly serious attempt of mitigating that with so many local amenities.
 
MichaelS said:
It isn't that remote if you are willing to use a transfer. The 98 will pick you up from 69th street station and take you right here. Or, you could catch the 111 from Westbrook. If you time the transfer right, both are very quick and direct.
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And on the citywide scale it isn't particularly remote either - it's the closest in greenfield area to the core, with well established direct links. As the local transit routes hopefully improve in the coming years, they can leverage the time-competitive West LRT in from 69th Street.

It's probably our best example of if you put enough stuff in a small enough walkable area, it starts to not matter as much where it actually is or if it's brand new. Someone living there will get a fairly self-contained, short commute, walkable lifestyle despite it being not physically central to the region or close to the traditional hubs.

The actual suburban towns around Calgary should be paying attention. A West District-style hub would the type of project that would open up a whole other market for them of potential residents, businesses and vibrancy. It's proof you don't need to just build the same old sprawl-type low density with minimal amenities in greenfield.

None of our suburban towns have a bold enough vision to really attempt this with their current politics, but can imagine just how revolutionary a West District-style hub at the future Cochrane train station could be, for example.
 
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Oak & Olive is climbing

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Plaza will likely be finished soon


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The grass was being watered today


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I wonder when it will be open to the public
 
The zoning is being discussed at Council as I type this (so no vote as of yet), but there was a great presentation by the applicant that included some new renderings:

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A rendeirng of the proposed rec centre. No DP yet, but a preview of what it may look like. The presenter said Truman is planning to also put a library into it:
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Updated to say the vote passed, it was approved.
 
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MichaelS said:
The zoning is being discussed at Council as I type this (so no vote as of yet), but there was a great presentation by the applicant that included some new renderings:

View attachment 666372

A rendeirng of the proposed rec centre. No DP yet, but a preview of what it may look like. The presenter said Truman is planning to also put a library into it:
View attachment 666373

Updated to say the vote passed, it was approved.
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This is one of the best land use presentations I've ever seen. Radio Park opening date seems to be September.

Bonus Renders:
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>>proposed rec centre. No DP yet, but a preview of what it may look like. The presenter said Truman is planning to also put a library into it:

Well that would be a great addition!

I find it odd that a 'rec centre' would shoehorn somewhere into the development as all the ones I've seen in Calgary have massive footprints (YMCA's, Westside Rec, etc.) Perhaps someone can enlighten me on an example of rec centre built on a smaller foot print?

Also library would be great too! While the West Springs Free Methodist Church was under construction I was so certain it was a library --- my hopes were dashed when the sign went up. Guess I need to lookup development permits. Ever since I call it the 'Fake Library'. 😥
 
jacketsniffer said:
>>proposed rec centre. No DP yet, but a preview of what it may look like. The presenter said Truman is planning to also put a library into it:

Well that would be a great addition!

I find it odd that a 'rec centre' would shoehorn somewhere into the development as all the ones I've seen in Calgary have massive footprints (YMCA's, Westside Rec, etc.) Perhaps someone can enlighten me on an example of rec centre built on a smaller foot print?

Also library would be great too! While the West Springs Free Methodist Church was under construction I was so certain it was a library --- my hopes were dashed when the sign went up. Guess I need to lookup development permits. Ever since I call it the 'Fake Library'. 😥
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Curious if it's going to be a public rec centre operated by a third party (i.e. Westside, MNP, YMCA, etc.) or a tenant only "rec centre" with some basic amenities. I know they have one in the Mahogany condo communities. Same with the library, is it CPL library? If it's CPL I'm not sure how much control Truman has. It's like new communities having "future school sites", but whether there is a school is completely up to CBE.
 
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