Mountain Man
Senior Member
A revitalized Olympic Plaza and Glenbow should help as well!
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Calgary's Downtown Dilemma
- Thread starter Alex_YYC
- Start date
zagox
Active Member
It's been said before but I don't see much traction developing until 4, 5, 6, and 9 avenues are made less hostile. My hope is that the residential conversions start to create the political will and imagination required.
YourBoy007
Active Member
Shrink the streets with larger and softer sidewalks, bike lanes on both sides, add more trees, take away a lot of the street parking. Lower the speed limit to 40Km/h downtown.
YourBoy007
Active Member
During one of Jason Kenney's Saturday Q&A radio shows I got to ask him a question. My question was (I'm paraphrasing), "Does your government realize the power of trains in our province, and would you be open to allocating more funds for a significant boost to public transit (ie, LRT's)?" I also brought up a line to the airport among other lines. His answer was disappointing. He said "we'll only boost funding as demand rises and ridership increases and we're not seeing that right now." Well no shit! I would have loved to actually have a good conversation with him about it.
So basically, not just the UCP, but the NDP too and the City of Calgary are all reaactive when it comes to public transit (and pretty much everything else). You can't do that with public transit or you'll be forever maintaining the downtown dilemma. They must be pro-active. That's the only way out. However, no one has a vision or the collaboration skills to pull off what is needed.
So basically, not just the UCP, but the NDP too and the City of Calgary are all reaactive when it comes to public transit (and pretty much everything else). You can't do that with public transit or you'll be forever maintaining the downtown dilemma. They must be pro-active. That's the only way out. However, no one has a vision or the collaboration skills to pull off what is needed.
Rollerstud98
Active Member
Should have replied with “have you not watched field of dreams?”
zagox
Active Member
I have to think the NDP platform for the next election is going to include some substantial infrastructure goodies including significant transit investments. No sense rolling them out now but once the new UCP leader is elected I would expect a steady drumbeat of funding promises between November and May.
MichaelS
Senior Member
The Province has already committed $1.5 billion to the Green Line keep in mind, a project that since their initial committment has dramatically reduced in scope and increased in overall cost. Perhaps they are waiting to see proof that it is a good investment before committing more?
Agreed. All 4 of those avenues suck environment wise. Great for pushing large volumes of cars 3 hours a day, but suck in every other way. I wish there was a cycle track on either 5th, 6th or 9th. 8th is okay, but it cuts off at Stephen Ave, and is mostly useful for getting over to the 5th street track. It would be nice to have an E-W track all the way through downtown. 6th would be the best as it could go all the way into EV.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
City, UCalgary partnership to spur improvements to under-used downtown spaces
Couple lines that stood out to me...
"They’ve catalogued roughly 1,600 under-utilized spaces in the downtown and Beltline areas of Calgary.
Now, with a $350,000 investment from the City of Calgary, the University of Calgary’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape (SAPL) will develop innovative ways to bring them to life."
"de Salvatierra said that they’ve also digitally mapped the urban attractors. This includes bars, restaurants, parks, galleries, hotels, places of interest and combine that with transportation infrastructure."
"On Thursday, SAPL also announced a pilot project with parking operator REEF. Over the next six months, they’ll look at more than 100 lots in Calgary to see how they could be transformed to meet future community needs."
100 out of 1600 under-utilized spaces isn't much, but it's something especially if, as they say, they know what spaces will have the most impact.
This is city building. This is a good news story. Calgary is getting better, its a slow burn, but a spark has started something.
Couple lines that stood out to me...
"They’ve catalogued roughly 1,600 under-utilized spaces in the downtown and Beltline areas of Calgary.
Now, with a $350,000 investment from the City of Calgary, the University of Calgary’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape (SAPL) will develop innovative ways to bring them to life."
"de Salvatierra said that they’ve also digitally mapped the urban attractors. This includes bars, restaurants, parks, galleries, hotels, places of interest and combine that with transportation infrastructure."
"On Thursday, SAPL also announced a pilot project with parking operator REEF. Over the next six months, they’ll look at more than 100 lots in Calgary to see how they could be transformed to meet future community needs."
100 out of 1600 under-utilized spaces isn't much, but it's something especially if, as they say, they know what spaces will have the most impact.
This is city building. This is a good news story. Calgary is getting better, its a slow burn, but a spark has started something.
It's great to see these kind of projects on the go. As most would agree the downtown dilemma isn't one thing, and won't be solved overnight, but every time things like this happen the gap closes. In a way Calgary's downtown was sort of like death by a thousand cuts, and now it's repair by a thousand band-aids.
adamyyc
Active Member
As the City tries to attract more people/families into the downtown, it will need to address the lack of playgrounds (in addition to the lack of green space). Where there is space, there’s no reason that small playgrounds can’t be incorporated in sidewalk areas and plazas (including some of the sterile corporate plazas we have). It’s not necessary for every playground to be surrounded by acres of green space.
MissingMiddle
Active Member
Although cool, the real win here is not what's physically built with that $350k, it's that an entire generation of Architects and Planners will be entering the workforce with an acute awareness of Calgary's swiss cheese urbanism.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
2.3 million sq ft of office space is currently vacant in downtown Vancouver
'The rental office vacancy rate in downtown Vancouver dropped in the third quarter of 2022 from 7.3% to 7.0%, a reflection of “renewed optimism” in the local office market, according to a new quarterly report by commercial real estate firm Colliers.'
Perspective matters (and they do mention these numbers in the article)... This article from Vancouver speaks of renewed optimism at hitting 7% vacancy! Meanwhile Calgary's 31.4% vacancy downtown is 13.8 million sqft, and I hadn't seen this number, 18.6% in the suburbs or 6.1 million sqft. (Is this companies moving into downtown because its where they want to be a cheaper?)
If we were at 7% you would see a lot more than 'renewed optimism'. Just shows and puts into perspective how far gone we are. We're at least a generation and some major conversions and demolitions away from 7%.
The article goes on to say, '“With no new towers added downtown this quarter, there is a growing list of tenants actively searching for space and chasing a shrinking range of options, forcing them to look at buildings that may not be completed for years,” said Susan Thompson, associate director of research at Colliers, in a statement.'
I understand Calgary isn't Vancouver and doesn't necessarily have quality office space available (I think a lot of the 30+ % is lower quality) but I'm sure people here read quotes like that and say, "what can I do to get you into some of this Calgary office space today?"
'The rental office vacancy rate in downtown Vancouver dropped in the third quarter of 2022 from 7.3% to 7.0%, a reflection of “renewed optimism” in the local office market, according to a new quarterly report by commercial real estate firm Colliers.'
Perspective matters (and they do mention these numbers in the article)... This article from Vancouver speaks of renewed optimism at hitting 7% vacancy! Meanwhile Calgary's 31.4% vacancy downtown is 13.8 million sqft, and I hadn't seen this number, 18.6% in the suburbs or 6.1 million sqft. (Is this companies moving into downtown because its where they want to be a cheaper?)
If we were at 7% you would see a lot more than 'renewed optimism'. Just shows and puts into perspective how far gone we are. We're at least a generation and some major conversions and demolitions away from 7%.
The article goes on to say, '“With no new towers added downtown this quarter, there is a growing list of tenants actively searching for space and chasing a shrinking range of options, forcing them to look at buildings that may not be completed for years,” said Susan Thompson, associate director of research at Colliers, in a statement.'
I understand Calgary isn't Vancouver and doesn't necessarily have quality office space available (I think a lot of the 30+ % is lower quality) but I'm sure people here read quotes like that and say, "what can I do to get you into some of this Calgary office space today?"
darwink
Senior Member
graduate 1000 more CS grads a year and they'll come. Our government refuses to fund the scale of the needed pivot. Mostly imo because it will take 6, 8, 10 years to start having a big effect.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
Is there anything to the idea that there's going to be a wait and see approach because of the looming provincial election? InfoSys already seems pretty optimistic about the city.