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Urban Development and Proposals Discussion

I don't get the opposition to creating a Western Theme Park on the Stampede Grounds. Wouldn't that be the perfect place to do so? The Fort Worth Stockyards are an incredibly popular tourist destination. Why would we not want to emulate something like that, on the grounds that hold the biggest "western" event in the country? The thing that actually makes our city unique and known?
 
I don't get the opposition to creating a Western Theme Park on the Stampede Grounds. Wouldn't that be the perfect place to do so? The Fort Worth Stockyards are an incredibly popular tourist destination. Why would we not want to emulate something like that, on the grounds that hold the biggest "western" event in the country? The thing that actually makes our city unique and known?
It would be a perfect fit - perhaps add a real farmers market or some direct connection between agriculture and the grounds. Stampede has talked about being a year-round place for 30+years but never really pulling the trigger in a meaningful way, apart from replacement and upgrading of existing facilities, and now a small niche museum.
 
I'll just say, I'm happy this specific building wasn't given the Western Theme Park treatment. I do think the Stampede leaning more into the western thing could be pretty cool, the demise of Weadickville has been disappointing.
 
It would be a perfect fit - perhaps add a real farmers market or some direct connection between agriculture and the grounds. Stampede has talked about being a year-round place for 30+years but never really pulling the trigger in a meaningful way, apart from replacement and upgrading of existing facilities, and now a small niche museum.
You’d think a farmers market would have been a key strategy. I go back to Philadelphia — a brilliant way to provide weekday infusions of customers to a market is convention facilities. Toronto the tourist area it stretches from the convention centre in the west to st Lawrence market in the east. A huge benefit. But they have the benefit of the long standing market.

We can just inorganic it. That’s fine. In 30 years we won’t recall it was dreamed up.
 
You’d think a farmers market would have been a key strategy. I go back to Philadelphia — a brilliant way to provide weekday infusions of customers to a market is convention facilities. Toronto the tourist area it stretches from the convention centre in the west to st Lawrence market in the east. A huge benefit. But they have the benefit of the long standing market.

We can just inorganic it. That’s fine. In 30 years we won’t recall it was dreamed up.
Exactly - you'd think the Stampede would be all over this idea, it seems so synergistic to everything they say they want to be. In the time that Stampede has talked about being a year-round place, Eau Claire Market has come and gone that imagined something similar to downtown market. Eau Claire famously didn't pan out - not because the idea was wrong, but the location, programming and design was. It was yet another one-off scheme, no real synergies or alignments to anything. It was isolated, mostly inward looking, and unaligned to where people live and anything else they might do.

If Stampede built a big market across from BMO Centre where the Big 4 building area it would have perfect transit, walking and driving access. If programmed well with lots of stuff, food and daily visit kind of stuff it would be by far the biggest driver of activity in the entire grounds and fill out that non-Stampede gap 345 day gap where traffic is currently minimal 9 - 5pm apart from the occasional conference (that currently are entirely inward looking as there's zero places to go visit nearby during a lunch break).

And for sure lets use public money - we already have a public arena, public convention centre, why not a public market too?
 
My partner and I were talking about where they could build a farmer's market in DT the other day, and we were thinking about Stampede Park and West Village (possibly where the Greyhound building stands) 😁
I suspect that we will 'need' to repurpose the main hall and main hall building of the Telus Convention Centre. The project will be paid off, it will be competing with the expanded BMO. It has parking, it has loading ramp access to various levels, it has train access, it is near the 'jobs' centre, it is right next to the civic gather spaces downtown, it has high ceiling heights to accommodate raising the floors for services, and adding services from above. It can trial pop ups reasonably easily without major infrastructure changes for a couple years to start on the cheap. Can start at a smaller scale and expand into the more over time, perhaps keeping some convention spaces operating as convention spaces.
 
I'll just say, I'm happy this specific building wasn't given the Western Theme Park treatment. I do think the Stampede leaning more into the western thing could be pretty cool, the demise of Weadickville has been disappointing.
If none of the buildings are given the Western Theme Park treatment, how will we ever achieve it?
 
I always wondered if the Telus Convention center could be repurposed as a sporting complex. I would imagine they could fit a few basketball, volleyball, badminton, even tennis courts in the main hall. Even an indoor soccer field could probably fit. The ceiling appears high enough for these sports. We could definitely use more indoor spaces for sports.
 
"17 Av NW Apartments" - 17.5m, 5 storeys, 33 units. A new rendering, and DP approval (but still possible to appeal until May 23rd).

Screenshot 2024-05-17 at 2.18.47 PM.png


This is on the map (actually twice, once as 17th Ave NW Apartments and once as 421 17 AVE), but there is no thread. Can one be created?
 
If none of the buildings are given the Western Theme Park treatment, how will we ever achieve it?
This section of Stampede Park is kind of done isn't it? This one looking like a Old Western movie set would've felt out of place. The answer to your question is Stampede Trail but we know that isn't going to happen.
 

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