General rating of the project

  • Great

    Votes: 9 9.6%

  • Very good

    Votes: 45 47.9%

  • Good

    Votes: 29 30.9%

  • So So

    Votes: 7 7.4%

  • Not Very Good

    Votes: 3 3.2%

  • Terrible

    Votes: 1 1.1%
  • Total voters
    94
gsunnyg said:
Exactly, Calgary doesn’t have the demand or profit spread to justify fancier designs right now . When we were booming we were able to get beautiful office buildings like the bow, Telus sky, etc. Now we have to adjust our expectations and realize Calgary’s one of the weakest real estate markets in Canada right now in terms of price/sales growth. We’ll probably have to wait a bit before we begin getting top notch designed condos. It’s still great to see we’re getting more high rise developments starting in a brutal economy like this, we’re relatively still blessed on the development side of things.
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Important in this conversation: you don't need $1,500 / sqft builds to build a functional, urban design. The basics are more important (prevent auto-orientation, effective street-level integration, density in the right places etc.) I'd take a city of "boring" 5 or 10 or 20 storey condos with the basics done right over a few flagship "top-notch" designs for the rich. Sure, higher cost/quality materials etc. complement what I am after, but lack of money doesn't typically prevent effective urban design either.
 
I'm in that same school of thought. Architectural marvels are nice, but Calgary really needs empty lots filled, and the as you mentioned, 'the basics' to be done. IMO even the boring buildings like Stella, have been pluses. They've added people to the core with some retail thrown in. Building's like Underwood, and 500 block are a step up. They cover the basics, but the buildings are nicer, and the retail streetscape is better. Some like The Royal, are really good.

I'm happy with a few boring ones that help the end goal, with a Royal or two thrown into the mix.

CBBarnett said:
Important in this conversation: you don't need $1,500 / sqft builds to build a functional, urban design. The basics are more important (prevent auto-orientation, effective street-level integration, density in the right places etc.) I'd take a city of "boring" 5 or 10 or 20 storey condos with the basics done right over a few flagship "top-notch" designs for the rich. Sure, higher cost/quality materials etc. complement what I am after, but lack of money doesn't typically prevent effective urban design either.
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The lucky part about Calgary is that we already have way more than our fair share of architectural marvels, so basic with good integration and massing is fiiine! I'd love to see more rental in East Village. Looking forward to seeing what Hines comes up with.
 
If I had the choice to have a superstore or city market right next door to me I would choose superstore 100%. I live by the city market in sage hill and the prices for your basic staples(produce, bread, meat, mac-n-cheese, etc) are 25%+ less at superstore. There are already some "upscale" grocers in the core(urban fare, sunterra) and Co-op is the only true competitor in my point of view. While I could go without the other departments(clothes, homewares, etc) of superstore I still think this is huge for the area.
 
In everyone's opinion, what is Calgary's best condo/apartment building in terms of being the closest to perfection (design, materials, retail, scale, etc). I think for me the best is Evolution in East Village. I really like the look of the tower (clean, simple but refined, nice brick podium, white and silver exterior, lots of glass, high quality materials), it has a great location, lots of human scaled retail at ground level, trees around it, and the perfect mix of heights.
 
Surrealplaces said:
I'm in that same school of thought. Architectural marvels are nice, but Calgary really needs empty lots filled, and the as you mentioned, 'the basics' to be done. IMO even the boring buildings like Stella, have been pluses. They've added people to the core with some residential. Buulding's like Underwood, and 500 block are a step up. They cover the basics pluses, but the buildings are nicer, and the streeetscapes are better.
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Agreed on having simple buildings and the need to fill in empty lots, that is the best thing we can do. I really don't care about landmark projects, i just want good urbanism and decent materials and design. I agree that Underwood is solid, and 500 Block isn't bad either. Curtis Block's podium is something i am looking forward to seeing. I also understand market conditions are rough, but a lot of these designs aren't acceptable, especially on the podiums of towers. Make towers portions inoffensive, but these full block or large footprint developments need to do a far better job on the designs of podiums. Downtown was already plagued with shitty empty lobbies that have no uses at grade, no respect for scale and do not create an active edge. Now so many of our new mixed-use and residential developments (All the Hats except 7 ave, the WAM one on 10th, Arris, etc.) have unacceptably shitty materials at grade and very poor design. Just because it is value engineer a building, doesn't mean it has to look like shit, or be completely out of scale with buildings of a historic context.

Good examples of designs i would personally like to see for podiums, especially full block (add a residential tower on top for the first two):
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Lemonaidan said:
If I had the choice to have a superstore or city market right next door to me I would choose superstore 100%. I live by the city market in sage hill and the prices for your basic staples(produce, bread, meat, mac-n-cheese, etc) are 25%+ less at superstore. There are already some "upscale" grocers in the core(urban fare, sunterra) and Co-op is the only true competitor in my point of view. While I could go without the other departments(clothes, homewares, etc) of superstore I still think this is huge for the area.
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Those were always going to exist in this development, just in a different format. Originally the idea was: City Market, Shoppers Drug Mart, Joe Fresh Clothing. You amalgamate all of those into one concept and you essentially get Superstore.
 
CBBarnett said:
Important in this conversation: you don't need $1,500 / sqft builds to build a functional, urban design. The basics are more important (prevent auto-orientation, effective street-level integration, density in the right places etc.) I'd take a city of "boring" 5 or 10 or 20 storey condos with the basics done right over a few flagship "top-notch" designs for the rich. Sure, higher cost/quality materials etc. complement what I am after, but lack of money doesn't typically prevent effective urban design either.
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Oh I was simply talking about the design in terms of quality of materials and look of the building. As far as good urban design goes, absolutely, there should be no excuse for even crappy towers/mid-rises to make a poor development that does very little to integrate with a main-street or lure pedestrians/shoppers. Hines podium looks promising from an urbanism perspective even though the look of the tower can arguably be called mediocre.
 
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Urb said:
Hi Guys - sorry to bust your bubble, but the reason very few residential towers have exceptional design in Calgary is because people are not willing to pay for it. The 3XN projects along the Toronto waterfront sell for $1,200-1,500+ per square foot. Until we see some serious appreciation in property values, I'm afraid you'll have to live with more of the same. IMHO, the quality of residential architectural has already come a long way since the Alura/Nuera, Vetro/Sasso days.
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Toronto is the perfect example that higher prices doesn't increase quality or design. Entire neighbourhoods have been turned over to novelty designs with the cheapest finishes possible. These weren't built 20 years ago. These are being built today. It's all the city knows.

An apartments ready development site in the Beltline can be purchased for a small fraction the costs of a similar site in downtown Toronto. The much cheaper price of a condo in Calgary balances things out. No one is building condos though. They are building rentals. It's several times cheaper to build in Calgary and the rents for new construction are yet similar.

The opportunity to express better design is now. It's not once you reach Toronto's overvalued residential market. Calgary is at a place where Vancouver was in the late 1980s. Vancouver may have gone overboard on Vancouverism (too many density restrictions) but, they certainly are in a better place than Toronto.
 
The best deal I could find on a hotel room in downtown Calgary was $225 a night for a 3 star hotel. That's probably the most I ever paid for a hotel room. One bedrooms aren't renting for $900 a month. The economy and the devastated office market has not impacted everything as believed.
 
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