WSL Currie | 22.5m | 6s | Western Securities | Hindle Architects

MichaelS

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A new DP has been submitted for Currie Barracks, at the NE corner of Flanders and Quesnaywood Dr:

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White and green, I like it. Interesting, simple, and different. If you squint this little section with Veranda, and the two buildings to the north, and now this could maybe start to see some momentum. Forever ago someone said BOSA was moving on their parcel in Currie next.
 
Has there been any new retail built in Currie Barracks? Or, is it all just repurposing the older buildings? This intersection is supposed to be the heart of the community with the BRT stop right there, but it looks like there is not much for a public interface on this building.
 
This intersection is supposed to be the heart of the community
This intersection is supposed to be the heart of the community?! Oh man.. Currie has businesses operating out of the parade square buildings but it is a retail wasteland. I think you would need to get rid of the reserve army base and everything south of it to MRU to get a better interface. Maybe Wild Rose sticks around as a "cool" building? The buildings around the parade square are not going anywhere as I think they probably make money because they're cheap and well located in the city, so I don't see whoever owns those being motivated to do anything. There is action in Currie, as I said above, but I think it will continue to be a failure for another decade, with the exception of slow one-offs (like this) here and there. Like EV, in the sense that Currie started out strong; with the single-family and row/duplex housing doing well. Currie couldn't turn that momentum into the multi-family portion. Outside of its central location there is zero reason to invest in multi-family there versus UD.
 
I don't really understand what Currie is doing and what they are trying to build overall - they had a few shiny skyline renderings back in 2015 with a bunch of towers, but I never really have seen much of the street life, retail and general vibe they are actually wanting to do here. Part of the problem is it's implemented piecemeal - I don't think all the roadways are even built so hard to get a sense of where things are heading.

This building looks great though! A great candidate for copy-paste filler to pretty much any street in the city.
 
It would be nice if Currie had a main high street like U/D with University ave or W/D with Broadcast ave. There's no center of gravity, just buildings scattered here and there.

Some simple main roads like shown in green and a couple of secondary main corridors shown in blue, would be nice. Also it would have been nice if they hadn't built such a retarded intersection at Flanders.

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It would be nice if Currie had a main high street like U/D with University ave or W/D with Broadcast ave. There's no center of gravity, just buildings scattered here and there.

Some simple main roads like shown in green and a couple of secondary main corridors shown in blue, would be nice. Also it would have been nice if they hadn't built such a retarded intersection at Flanders.

View attachment 588516

You are not seeing the center of gravity because it hasn't been built yet. It is the light blue circle (a park with water feature) in the middle of mixed use/commercial at the intersection of Flander and Currie.
CLC has so far been sticking to its plan pretty closely.

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It would be nice if Currie had a main high street like U/D with University ave or W/D with Broadcast ave. There's no center of gravity, just buildings scattered here and there.

Some simple main roads like shown in green and a couple of secondary main corridors shown in blue, would be nice. Also it would have been nice if they hadn't built such a retarded intersection at Flanders.
It's really just a bad suburb that's lost too far inner city.
 
I find it kind of meh. Materials will make or break.

Currie as a whole is quite odd and disappointing. It has the bones to be really cool, but as mentioned above is basically just becoming suburbia. I'd bet Seton ends up with higher density when all is said and done.
 
Really need Bosa to get going on some of the mixed-use buildings in the central area. With the next round of multi-family developments getting occupied they have sufficient rooftops to support the retail soon. Also the offices to the SE have decent occupancy that could support some daytime traffic.

Having retail anchors in early really pushed UD along a lot faster that Currie.
 
Currie has been pretty annoying as a whole. I posted on Reddit to see if anyone knew of a reporter that might provide real coverage on the abysmal state of Currie right now instead of the usual fluff pieces and praise it gets. People really went on the offence, stating that I was just complaining and places like Marda Loop are close enough and walkable. I was kind of surprised. It has the makings of a nice community, and if you come check it out it looks nice, but when you live here you quickly see just how much it is lacking. Canada Lands is really dragging their heels on everything here to the detriment of the community. When I had talked to some people at Canada Lands, they made some weak excuses. They tried to say that they can't start the density and retail because then no one will buy the larger villas they were planning. I'm sorry, but the people buying the condo and the person buying those $1.5+ million villas are not the same at all. They also told us years ago that they were working with the city to get the BRT in and had gone back and forth and one side or the other wasn't ready. Last I heard from Rutland Post is that the transit plan may be changing, although they didn't provide details on how. Overall, Currie just feels like it is headed to be a giant failure and will likely just be filled in with a weird mix of single family, townhomes, and some multi residential with no retail and clogged roads because they didn't prioritize walking/cycling/transit. Even the builders are sending out pamphlets with their main selling point being the garages you can get. If that doesn't tell you how poorly its walkable vision is going...
 

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