Overall this turned out ok. The building is a bit bland. Sarina has done better work on the street. There are still a lot of deficiencies that I hope they’ll address.
 
MichaelS said:
Too bad about the retaining wall along 33rd. I understand the grade is changing, but I would have liked to have seen a staircase of some sort, making those store fronts a bit more accessible. I suppose there wasn't enough depth for the amount of risers needed by the end though.
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I went back looked at the concept elevation drawing on Sarina's website and the only reason why we got this elevation is because of the sidewalk. If you look at their picture the sidewalk is up against 33rd, leaving room for the stairs. Why have the sidewalk so close to the building with a plain grass boulevard? I assume it was done this way to meetup with the existing sidewalk to the east. Is that a thing? Why not just have the sidewalk transition? No excuse for 18th St. though...

Harry.PNG
 
CBBarnett said:
I wish they kept the store entrances at sidewalk level and just stepped the entrances down a few feet so every door is at street level even though it's on a slope. The 1st floor roof can still be the flat slab to simplify the construction, but just vary the first floor heights to match the profile of the street (shorter on the west, taller on the east). That way it's contextually designed and considers the street it's on first, not last. All good walking cities with good main streets but have hills do this to their buildings.

As it's designed now it's pretty sloppy and totally defeats the purpose of having retail on the ground floor. Huge miss.
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This is exactly why I'm a little worried that Sarina is single-handedly rebuilding the entirety of 33 Ave east of 19 St. They're very sloppy. None of their buildings so far have particularly good frontages (COCO, Hudson, Harrison, Avenue 33). Now a new one across the street from Avenue 33. It will also be on a hill and twice as long.
 
Silence&Motion said:
This is exactly why I'm a little worried that Sarina is single-handedly rebuilding the entirety of 33 Ave east of 19 St. They're very sloppy. None of their buildings so far have particularly good frontages (COCO, Hudson, Harrison, Avenue 33). Now a new one across the street from Avenue 33. It will also be on a hill and twice as long.
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Some developers (BOSA, Truman, Anthem, etc.) seem to sleep on areas that aren't 'master planned'... For good reason maybe.
 
Silence&Motion said:
This is exactly why I'm a little worried that Sarina is single-handedly rebuilding the entirety of 33 Ave east of 19 St. They're very sloppy. None of their buildings so far have particularly good frontages (COCO, Hudson, Harrison, Avenue 33). Now a new one across the street from Avenue 33. It will also be on a hill and twice as long.
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I think the frontage is on Harrison and Avenue 33 are good with the exception of the slope situation.. Every new development I’ve seen that’s on the slope treats the slope the way Harrison and Avenue 33 does it.
I don’t know if that’s Serena’s fault or if it’s because of building requirements nowadays?
 
Zoom said:
I think the frontage is on Harrison and Avenue 33 are good with the exception of the slope situation.. Every new development I’ve seen that’s on the slope treats the slope the way Harrison and Avenue 33 does it.
I don’t know if that’s Serena’s fault or if it’s because of building requirements nowadays?
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I think it’s a modern desire to stick to a structurally simple flat slab and deal with the grade as an externality at the end of things. I see it regularly in the single family space too where grade context is ignored. Disconnected from the landscape. Rather than design a building to conform to conditions, they just make up for it with retaining walls, steps, staircases, ramps and railings. Winter accessibility wonderland.
 
haltcatchfire said:
I think it’s a modern desire to stick to a structurally simple flat slab and deal with the grade as an externality at the end of things. I see it regularly in the single family space too where grade context is ignored. Disconnected from the landscape. Rather than design a building to conform to conditions, they just make up for it with retaining walls, steps, staircases, ramps and railings. Winter accessibility wonderland.
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In some cases it's design laziness, in this case I imagine leasing flexibility is driving the decision. For commercial space, having steps in the slab chops up the space into smaller CRUs and would make it unsuitable for larger tenants.

Unfortunately the result is a brutal storefront presence for most of the frontage.
 
artvandelay said:
In some cases it's design laziness, in this case I imagine leasing flexibility is driving the decision. For commercial space, having steps in the slab chops up the space into smaller CRUs and would make it unsuitable for larger tenants.

Unfortunately the result is a brutal storefront presence for most of the frontage.
Click to expand...

Great point. I didn't consider space consolidation. That's definitely an important thing I shouldn't have overlooked for providing tenant leasing flexibility.
 
Zoom said:
I think the frontage is on Harrison and Avenue 33 are good with the exception of the slope situation.. Every new development I’ve seen that’s on the slope treats the slope the way Harrison and Avenue 33 does it.
I don’t know if that’s Serena’s fault or if it’s because of building requirements nowadays?
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Almost every mid-rise building in South Calgary/Marda Loop has been built on a slope and pretty much all of them have executed it better than Harrison. Examples: A, B, C, D.
 
Silence&Motion said:
Almost every mid-rise building in South Calgary/Marda Loop has been built on a slope and pretty much all of them have executed it better than Harrison. Examples: A, B, C, D.
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The grade is high at the main corner of Harrison vs low at your B,C,D examples. Makes a difference in the exposure. In B, C, D the building sits down in the grade. At Harrison the building sits above it.

They should not have focused the corner as the anchor point.
 
CalgaryTiger said:
To inject some optimism... they're about to redo 33rd Ave (at some point). This section isn't in the first two phases but maybe they're going to redo it in conjunction with the main street upgrades?

View attachment 419831
Phasing here:
View attachment 419834
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I’m hoping the City does this Project in fewer phases given how long it has taken to get to this point (still waiting for detailed design to be completed).

I also don’t think the phasing they originally proposed makes sense.

First off, the idea was that developers of properties fronting on later phases would undertake some of the work/cost to complete the streetscape, but we’re seeing smaller “missing middle” proposals popping up. Getting developers to undertake the work only makes sense for larger, half block developments, and only if they’re all happening close together in time. 33 is not going to evolve quickly enough as you get closer to 14th, to put the onus on the developer, and the City has failed to get the developers who have built buildings recently to incorporate the Mainstreet vision because they have taken so long to get detailed design completed.

Secondly, to implement the Mainstreet, they have to have utilities relocated, change road/sidewalk alignments, etc. How do you properly implement cycling infrastructure on 34 if it’s in 4 phases?

I just can’t see the phasing working out the way it’s outline in the Masterplan (but maybe it will have to because funding keeps going to downtown instead).
 
adamyyc said:
I’m hoping the City does this Project in fewer phases given how long it has taken to get to this point (still waiting for detailed design to be completed).

I also don’t think the phasing they originally proposed makes sense.

First off, the idea was that developers of properties fronting on later phases would undertake some of the work/cost to complete the streetscape, but we’re seeing smaller “missing middle” proposals popping up. Getting developers to undertake the work only makes sense for larger, half block developments, and only if they’re all happening close together in time. 33 is not going to evolve quickly enough as you get closer to 14th, to put the onus on the developer, and the City has failed to get the developers who have built buildings recently to incorporate the Mainstreet vision because they have taken so long to get detailed design completed.

Secondly, to implement the Mainstreet, they have to have utilities relocated, change road/sidewalk alignments, etc. How do you properly implement cycling infrastructure on 34 if it’s in 4 phases?

I just can’t see the phasing working out the way it’s outline in the Masterplan (but maybe it will have to because funding keeps going to downtown instead).
Click to expand...
Something to watch for in the budget this fall. I don't think the price tag here is huge for what you get out of it but the idea is to make this a destination means this is community building, not city building so we'll see. I mean developers already like 33rd, or at least RNDSQR and Sarina do, make 33rd what you layout in the master plan and that can only help turn single family homes into missing middle and condo developments that pay more in property taxes.
 
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