The Familia
Senior Member
Looking good! Are the open lots to the left and right of the building part of this development or are they separate parcels? It would be cool if some funky skinny condos went up on either side of platform.
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CCF
Active Member
Intended for future residential development.
Disraeli
Active Member
The Familia
Senior Member
This one intrigues me. If the facade turns out like the rendering it will look really cool. Nice to see the ground floor usage. I can also see it being heavily used once the new arena opens up. It wouldn't be much further than some people park and walk to the current Saddledome.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
I've always struggled with this one. To me it's a perfect example of doing the wrong thing better. It's pretty and uses a hard to build site but:
- We added parking supply to the core without mapping parking demand. We have no ability to evaluate whether we need it or not.
- We added more car trips to a poorly designed car-sewer we always complain about on here in 9th Avenue
- We did not consider alternative solutions that wouldn't require a parking garage to be built. Perhaps $80M could have been used to "unlock" even more existing privately-owned parking that is poorly utilized like most condo towers built in recent decades?
- We "future-proofed" this parkade to transition to something else, yet have no real way to follow through other than hope one day we can reuse this (unlike our previous attempt at the City Hall Parkade which was designed to place a tower over it but never happened)
- We added alternative uses, but not complementary uses. See Arts Parkade at U of C for an example of this innovative idea in practice
- We aren't leveraging the investment by saving money elsewhere or aligning it with the bigger picture (e.g. blanket policy of zero parking requirements for all new buildings within 1km of here as this investment provides all the parking we will ever need (1) and there are 3, soon to be 5 LRT stations within 1km of here (2) and that it's the most walkable part of the city so we should be saving money on car infrastructure (3).
MichaelS
Senior Member
Well, 2 substantial civic buildings (new Library, Studio Bell) were built without parking because of the plans for this parkade, so we did leverage your last bullet point to some extent. It was also part of the justification for zero parking in N3, and can be used in further parking relaxations/reductions if sought by developers of other buildings within the vicinity.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
Fair point but I don't think this is bold enough. Having developers potentially receive relaxations on future buildings leaves plenty of room for individual influence and discretion as opposed to a rule that says something like "within 600m of a public garage, parking requirements are removed" or "parking requirements are removed if you are 600m from LRT stations with mulitple lines".
It's all about trade-offs and I get that. But we built these institutions without parking deliberately at the location of our car-free transportation hub - it doesn't get more accessible to non-car travel in Calgary (or Alberta or anywhere in Canada outside the cores of the biggest cities) than literally that block.We already have thousands of public and private parking stalls nearby. If there was ever a place to make an argument that we don't need to spend $80M on a garage we can't prove we need it's here.
MichaelS
Senior Member
Well, Council does have a rule that says something to this effect. Or rather, a Policy. The Calgary Parking Policies (Policy #TP017) made effective July 31, 2017:
The City of Calgary -
The policies for this section, below, lay out the criteria necessary to qualify for zero parking:
CT (Chinese_T)
Active Member
New Q&A with design team + New Renders (I believe they are new renders)
www.calgarymlc.ca
Q&A with the Design Team of 9th Avenue Parkade and Platform Innovation Centre | CMLC
We sat down with the lead architects of the 9th Avenue Parkade and Platform Innovation Centre, Joanne Sparkes (Kasian) and Sasa Radulovic (5468796), to ask about their experiences with the project so far, including the greatest challenges and opportunities, their favourite design element, and how th
www.calgarymlc.ca
Sky of Blue
Active Member
Oh, now that’s cool. The bottom one. It goes over the road. It’s using otherwise dead space.
CT (Chinese_T)
Active Member
I'm also curious as to what that huge sphere is
googspecial
Active Member
Relocation of that one from the Genesis Centre? Is it still in lock-up after melting small children?
UrbanWarrior
Senior Member
It doesn't go over the road though, 3 Street SE terminates there, but it will be the entrance to the area. You're very right thought that this is a pretty good use of space that has been dead for like a hundred years.