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Urban Development and Proposals Discussion

Almost all the trees in the Eau Claire Plaza redevelopment area have been removed. Looks like construction in the area is imminent.

Also, looks like they were doing soil testing for the Bow River Green Line Bridge today...

B56659F7-3E27-42AD-B4CF-66084DBC1553.jpeg
 
Lol what?

No. Eau Claire Plaza is being rebuilt, as is the river pathway between there and the Centre Street Bridge.
 
Wow not a fan of all those trees being cut down. Parks are supposed to have trees, especially along the river bank. Not sure why they couldn't work around most of them. I think we are going to end up with a giant barren windswept concrete plaza. I may be wrong but looking at the renderings it doesn't appear that there will be more trees than now.
 
The Familia said:
Wow not a fan of all those trees being cut down. Parks are supposed to have trees, especially along the river bank. Not sure why they couldn't work around most of them. I think we are going to end up with a giant barren windswept concrete plaza. I may be wrong but looking at the renderings it doesn't appear that there will be more trees than now.
Click to expand...
I may be off on this, but having worked in BC and Alberta, they really require you to have a thoughtful approach to disturbing existing trees as little as possible in BC. In Alberta and particularly Calgary they don't care about the loss of mature trees at all. Can't tell an engineer he has to pay attention to Root Protection Zones of existing trees in Calgary, just rip them all out, draw straight lines and start the tree growth process all over.

Calgary always disappoints in this regard, no recognition that we should be developing a mature tree canopy over time and minimize disturbance on existing mature trees wherever possible. It is definitely a big difference in the culture surrounding development in the two places and it really shows. In my opinion it should be even more important to respect healthy mature trees here as they are harder to grow.
 
From the city's website on the plaza project. I notice that the plaza project doesn't actually include the promenade and pathway upgrades, so the map kind of cuts off a bit on the north side.

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I couldn't find the overhead schematic of the pathways/riverfront part of the plan, but this image is as close as I could find for what the area just north of the plaza will look like. Seems like a fairly substantial elevation change from what exists today and a separate bicycle path all the way through the area. I don't know if this means they could have saved more trees or not.

1614033247430.png
 
Here's the pathway area; almost entirely hardscaped (which makes sense given the volume of pathway users, the expansion of the bridge, etc). It would be nice to retain trees, but this is a keystone node in the pathway system, and expansion is desperately needed. I wonder if one reason all of the trees on the east side of the bridge were removed (in the area that looks like a gravel river approach similar to the one near the Peace Bridge) as part of a tree retention strategy on the west side of the bridge. There needs to be access for the project somewhere, and this could have enabled leaving the west side trees intact.

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I also note that the plaza design will include (feature 6) a "Play area" that will be the "front porch of the YMCA". Another reason to be pissed off that the powers that be let this YMCA close.
 
darwink said:
IIRC the entire pathway is being regraded and rebuilt as part of a flood mitigation work. Unfortunately, changing the elevation of the ground + dikes + trees don't mix.
Click to expand...

That's what I was going to say. There are wayyy too many structural changes going on in the area to maintain every single tree, or even a majority.
 
So with the Provincial budget, we will get a new $57.3 million court of appeal building.
calgaryherald.com

Budget 2021: Alberta promises city stimulus funding now, but cuts to come

The budget allocates $57.3 million for a new Court of Appeal building in Calgary
calgaryherald.com calgaryherald.com
Any guesses as to where? If my memory serves me correct, there was always planned an additional phase to the Calgary Court Center, with a building planned to go in the SE corner of 6th Ave and 5th Street here:
www.google.ca

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
www.google.ca www.google.ca
 
I'd expect the Court of Appeal $ amount to grow once you add a fourth year to the project. The original P3 had in addition to the current occupants both the court of appeal, the federal court, and in the old building, a larger law library than exists in the current tower and law society lounge and restaurant in it to require this much space:
1614366380295.png


1614366391862.png

In the end the phasing was changed as the scope changed (and the law society couldn’t raise the $ for their part of the project iirc) and the parkade moved further east under the park to not interfere with future work on the potential mini tower site.

I wonder if the province will make a play to get the federal court in as well, though in the past the justices have generally not taken kindly to being co-located.
 

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