- Thread starter MichaelS
- Start date
CT (Chinese_T)
Active Member
The new plan isn't bad by any means but I have a few concerns.
It seems they've put a parkade entrance here where there should be a larger gateway into the park.
The angled parking across from Cascade will make the street feel more like a parking lot with cars having to back up out of the spaces.
Is there any mixed use at all? The concept plans show large landscaping features in front of most of the buildings except the one fronting Richmond Road.
These undefined "greenspaces" in particular seem a bit unclear. The shapes are pretty reminiscent of developments in the suburbs with huge courtyard parking lots...
Overall this sort of feels more like a reincarnation of the 60s "Tower in the Park" concept than anything else; good in terms of added density but not adding anything new or meaningful to the community as a whole.
Expect deVille 2.0 with the three 50m towers.
It seems they've put a parkade entrance here where there should be a larger gateway into the park.
The angled parking across from Cascade will make the street feel more like a parking lot with cars having to back up out of the spaces.
Is there any mixed use at all? The concept plans show large landscaping features in front of most of the buildings except the one fronting Richmond Road.
These undefined "greenspaces" in particular seem a bit unclear. The shapes are pretty reminiscent of developments in the suburbs with huge courtyard parking lots...
Overall this sort of feels more like a reincarnation of the 60s "Tower in the Park" concept than anything else; good in terms of added density but not adding anything new or meaningful to the community as a whole.
Expect deVille 2.0 with the three 50m towers.
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maestro
Senior Member
Those with the surface parking are atrocious. They are much worse than a modernist tower in a park community with the park part being green space. All that asphalt adds to the heat effect and requires storm water management. LOL , Where do the children play?
Underground parking is 100 times more expensive so this does make things more affordable and these development must have one level of underground parking. There are plenty of examples of 6 storey mid rises with 100% surface parking and those I question if they are any denser than town houses.
Underground parking is 100 times more expensive so this does make things more affordable and these development must have one level of underground parking. There are plenty of examples of 6 storey mid rises with 100% surface parking and those I question if they are any denser than town houses.
adamyyc
Active Member
I think the new layout will incorporate better into the surrounding area than the previous "master plan" layout, which I think would have felt kind of closed off/gated to those who don't live in the community. The roadway and pathway network in the previous iteration was inefficient, and a larger consolidated park will provide a better amenity for the surrounding community than a bunch of parkettes.
Yes, the loss of density is a shame, but I still think this is a reasonable density boost for a semi-constrained site.
Yes, the loss of density is a shame, but I still think this is a reasonable density boost for a semi-constrained site.
CKDevMan
New Member
My hope is that a development of this size spurs some retail development opportunities - either within the existing retail stores and new ones built within the complex.
Imagine a nice pocket within that Richmond area where there is cafes, boutiques, bike shops, a nice restaurant, etc. I see a new brewery Buffalo 9 is tucked in right by the Minto development, so they will be quite busy in the future! It's for sure a missed opportunity for density, but 1,250 units is nothing to scoff att.
Imagine a nice pocket within that Richmond area where there is cafes, boutiques, bike shops, a nice restaurant, etc. I see a new brewery Buffalo 9 is tucked in right by the Minto development, so they will be quite busy in the future! It's for sure a missed opportunity for density, but 1,250 units is nothing to scoff att.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
Excavators are working here today in the parking lot south of the school, not sure if this means the school is going to be demo'd soon?
potatopizzafan
Active Member
Noticed the school is now fenced off and there was some equipment on site, i imagine demo will be commencing soon
Could be sitting as an empty lot for a while. The land use application is still under review..
Transit Apologist
New Member
Goodbye (perhaps good riddance) to what was once one of the most decrepit CBE properties. The 2005 facility evaluation report is available online and an interesting read.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
Big fan of redevelopment, but from a school board perspective I think they have totally screwed up.
To be fair to them “redevelopment” was a relatively new concept when this school was closed. Also the collapse of birth rates was super hard to predict especially how it could apply to the local nuances for number of school children in the area.
I like this development but I also think school boards should stop selling off schools in communities at their lowest ebb. This would have been a decision about 10 years ago I would guess.
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There are a few schools near me in my innercity-ish NW neighborhood that were at one time contemplated for closure and now they're busy again. One of them is so full they're having a struggle fitting all the kids in. For example Capitol Hill has seen an explosion in the number of children in the area. Nobody saw it coming 15 years ago.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
CBE's big miss is not creating mixed developments on their inner-city properties. There's no reason why they cannot find a development partner, like Co-op has, and help themselves.
A while back in one of the other threads I proposed the idea of the CBE selling part of their land to developers and putting the money into a trust specifically for that school. They could keep the school going, and at the same time make use of portions of land that isn't really being used very well. Either that the CBE could do leases like the University for U/D. Either way they have lots of inner city schools where only about 1/3 of the land is actually used by students, and the other 2/3rds could be developed to the benefit of the school.
Found the other post that had an example. I'm not saying the board should have done this with Viscount Bennet, just in general for some of our inner city elementary schools.
I think the idea of building on a portion of school lands is worth looking into on a site by site basis.
There’s no question there are lots of schools that have big open fields that are rarely used for much. Especially in the inner city where there are multiple schools in short distances ic each other.
Perhaps a portion of the schoolyard, at the end of the field for example, could be sold to developers, and part of the money goes back to the school board as an overall endowment fund and a smaller portion could go into an endowment fund for the specific school.
I'll pick on this NW school as my son went there so I'm very familiar with it. The section of playground marked in red is rarely used as 80% of the students play and hang within 30m of the school, and another 15% hanging in the 90m range. The ball diamond is used only once in a while during the summer, but could still be moved.
The ball diamond moves south, and a small low-rise multifamily development goes in at the far end as shown. I've used an example of a 4 storey development from 17th ave NW that has 36 units per building. Two buildings would make a nice 72 units to an area which is adjacent to a bus route and a bike lane, and a stone's throw from a beautiful park.
I'm guessing here, but suppose the land was sold for $7 million. The province or school board could take $5 Million and put into an endowment fund, and the school could take $2 million. After all it is the school who's losing some of its land. This could be a game changer as many inner city schools have the land available on main arteries and bus routes and is attractive to developers.
The endowment fund ensures that inner city schools have options to offer programs or incentives to attract students and keep schools well maintained as the inner city child populations increase. If the schools do well it's an extra incentive for people to raise children in the inner city and send them to schools already built.
zzkwilliamcanada
Active Member
yes, the one sit in the downtown 6av and Macleod is such a waste. good location, big lot.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
Yeah it's a remarkable turnaround thanks to redevelopment - despite continual collapse in average household size and fewer children overall, the communities that saw redevelopment actually did bounce back with increased number of children from their all time lows.
For example, the King Edward School site (now C-Space arts hub) in South Calgary was closed in 2001. At that time the census tract (Calgary CT 24) that contained it only had 390 kids (5 to 14 years old). In 2021, it's up to 560 in that bracket - 170 more school age kids after the school had already been closed than before. That's 6 - 8 more classrooms worth of kids in an area of a couple dozen blocks.
C-Space is cool and everything, but they literally sold the school at the lowest ebb in local children population lol. I doubt there's a way to have really forecast this turnaround accurately though, and with enough confidence that you keep a school like this open when all trend lines were pointing to an ever-decreasing kid population since the mid 1960s