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As is the case with all cities, proposals come and go. Some of these proposals are seen through to the finish line while often many are never built, or the final product ends up being much different than the original vision.
Today, SkyriseCalgary takes a look back at some of the proposals that were never built in Calgary. Because of Calgary's at times, boom and bust cycled economy, numerous skyscrapers were proposed during the boom periods, only to get shelved when the economy took a dive. Generally speaking Calgary's boom and bust cycles have been less noticeable as time has gone on, but during one big downturn in 1980, several proposed projects were shelves, and were never built. Here are a few of the ones never built.
FCC II, was the intended second phase of the current BMO Tower. The phase 2 east tower was originally planned at 64 stories, and was set to tower over the rest of downtown Calgary. It was later down scaled to 57 stories, and then after the economy dropped off in 1981, the project was shelved altogether.
Another really tall proposal was the Alberta 75 Place proposal. Plans called for a 75 storey tower which was to commemorate Alberta's 75th birthday. The height was estimated to be close to 1000', rivaling the FCC tower in Toronto, which has been Canada's tallest office building for decades. Like the FCC II proposal, it was shelved due to the economic bust.
Back in 1971, Calgary once had a proposal for the tallest building in the world. Yes, you read that correctly. Local developer Hymie Singer had started out looking to build a 16 storey hotel, but the project, know as 'Singer City' grew, and later would come to be a 1,900 foot mixed use proposal with 6,500 hotel suites, and 1 Million square feet of commercial space.
While some buildings never got built, other were built but from a different design. Today, Calgary's Bankers Hall towers are well known, for the POMO style among Calgary's modern styled buildings, but originally the towers were a more basic box design of all gold and silver glass when first designed. When the downturn came about, it resulted in the project sitting on hold until the late 1980's when POMO styled buildings were all the rage. The new design was thus done ion a PMO style.
These are only a few examples of some of the projects never built, or changed over the years, as there were many more. Stay tuned as SkyriseCalgary will look at more of these failed or changed proposals. For more photos and discussion of these projects, be sure to check out out the forum related thread, and as always, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section below.
