Do you support the proposal for the new arena?

  • Yes

    Votes: 102 67.5%

  • No

    Votes: 39 25.8%

  • Maybe

    Votes: 10 6.6%
  • Total voters
    151
UrbanWarrior said:
Agreed, especially about the mid-sized buildings. The main difference in the incomparable comparison is that Calgary doesn't have an ocean of parking inside the CBD to turn into an arena and a few towers, that's why we've got what we're getting. The only other viable option was the west village, which was a far tougher sell and even less developed.
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The Eau Claire Market site is about the same size and right across the street from the Sheraton visiting teams stay at, plus it would make for some cool street activation along 2nd Ave and the river. There's also supposed to be a Green Line station there, so in the immediate future it would be a really cool redevelopment that would fill a bunch of gaps on the north side of downtown. However, I think the Vic Park location is a more impactful catalyst in the long term (20+ years), Eau Claire is too valuable not to get redeveloped eventually.
 
Mountain Man said:
The contamination issue ends any discussion in West Village, it's going to take decades to even figure out who pays for it, let alone does it.
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That West Village proposal probably would have killed whatever life is left of 17 Avenue SW as most hockey fans and event goers would have gravitate towards the new businesses in the West Village area.
 
RicoLance21 said:
That West Village proposal probably would have killed whatever life is left of 17 Avenue SW as most hockey fans and event goers would have gravitate towards the new businesses in the West Village area.
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And it would have slowly reverted back to a mix of retail as restaurants gravitated elsewhere. I wouldn't say it would be a bad thing. Just a different thing.
 
RicoLance21 said:
That West Village proposal probably would have killed whatever life is left of 17 Avenue SW as most hockey fans and event goers would have gravitate towards the new businesses in the West Village area.
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Hard to say. The worst and shabbiest part of 17th Avenue was the area closest to the event centre and arena for the past 40 years. Surely there is game traffic and event traffic that must have a positive impact on local retail, but it's role in the health and attractiveness of the street is far over stated - or at the very least not material in triggering much rejuvenation or retail growth. If stadiums and event centres triggered huge retail benefits, 40 years should have been long enough to see that materialize and the part closest to them actually declined further.

If we are looking for a correlation, the strongest and most dynamic parts of 17th Ave (4th to 10th Streets, a pocket at 14th Street) have been doing better thanks to high local population growth and destination retail developments. I actually think the urban format Canadian Tire has a greater net positive impact to local business traffic on 17th Avenue than if you built a stadium right on the street itself.
 
I think the area of 17th, closest to the Stampede will start to turn around once 17th goes straight through into the grounds. IMO, one of the things that helped the decline of that entrance to 17th being cut off and Macleod/1st st SE being freeway type roadways.

How much that stretch will improve is hard to say, but it's bound to at least improve to some degree. The mix of high density residential and the lack of large freeway type roads has been a huge benefit to other parts of 17th ave ave. The area around Tompkins Park is a great model for an inner city, urban village.
 
The block between MacLeod Tr and 1 ST SE isn't unlike much of the "best parts" of 17 Ave in terms of businesses, streetscape and architectural composition. It's the 2 blocks straddling Centre ST comprising of autobody shops, car rental shops and church office buildings that hamper that end of the whole Avenue. The easternmost block should hopefully benefit from the Stampede Park connection, but I sort of doubt it until we see some more action in the rest of the gap.
 
Surrealplaces said:
I think the area of 17th, closest to the Stampede will start to turn around once 17th goes straight through into the grounds. IMO, one of the things that helped the decline of that entrance to 17th being cut off and Macleod/1st st SE being freeway type roadways.

How much that stretch will improve is hard to say, but it's bound to at least improve to some degree. The mix of high density residential and the lack of large freeway type roads has been a huge benefit to other parts of 17th ave ave. The area around Tompkins Park is a great model for an inner city, urban village.
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something major needs to happen between Centre street and 2st SW, there are just a bunch of weird church buildings, an auto shop and empty lots there right now
 
The fact there's a funeral home on 17th avenue sums up how confusing the whole ave is. The area around Tompkins Parks is beautiful and vibrant but go further east you'd think you're in a developing country.
I think it was an opportunity missed with the BMO center design. They could've included retail on the podium along 17th ave and the LRT station side and some residential units on top of the Centre on the west side. A proper TOD connecting 17th ave. Instead, we're getting a giant wall facing along 17th ave and no interaction with the station. I really never understood where the City gets their urban designers and architects from, I'd rather pick someone from this site any day of the week. Despite our differences on a lot of issues, the majority of us share a lot of common ideas on creating a vibrant urban city. It doesn't take much to figure out which proposals are going to work and which ones aren't. Somehow the city always tends to find workers that are prone to failing. I really hope they don't mess up the Event Centre design.
 
Another thing is that in the better portion of 17th (from 14th St to 2nd St), in the 300m or so south of the avenue, there's between 300 and 600 people living per block, with the exception of Western Canada High (which can be its' own source of retail foot traffic). All told, there's around 6000 people living in that 1800m x 300m strip, which is the same as Inglewood and Ramsay combined. East of 2nd St, the population living south of 17th Ave is a couple hundred at best for a 600m length. And the population will stay pretty low for the forseeable future -- the land is mostly institutional -- schools, church, parks, the river and rec centre, casino, fire hall. This population is important for two reasons; not only does it double the potential customer base when both sides of the strip are well-populated, but any residents south of 17th who work in the downtown or Beltline have to walk across 17th on their commute; the shops there are on the way. Residents living the same couple of blocks north of 17th have to go out of their way to go to 17th, in contrast. It doesn't help that the residents north of 17th here have to walk down Macleod, which is incredibly hostile.
 
The East end of 17th was making baby steps with Mill Street and the Torode building on Centre Street. But with Mill St closed, the Poke place in Mission 17 closed it seems to have taken a step backward. I hope the new connection to the Stampede Grounds revitalizes it bit and some of those autobody shops close.
 
If I'm being honest, I kind of hope the Hat at Elbow doesn't happen. I'm all in for the massive boost in density, but that is another extremely prominent location that Cidex will ruin our skyline from for at least a century to come. With the only thing that will block even a part of it is the Anthem Erlton development in some unknown future.
 
Edit: share link on next page

A scanned set of the Saddledome construction drawings were shared over on CalgaryPuck.

It’s 185mb so I’ll need to go through Dropbox or something. I’ll plan to share it until someone tells me not to.
 
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