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I don’t want to sound negative but I almost feel like the CBD is a write off. Even if the towers fill back up it’s still mostly an office park on steroids. Years of soul sucking office building street frontages have almost ruined it for good.

The only hope IMO is to get more residents in the CBD and have more retail on the street.
 
A large brewpub going into Firehall No. 1 would go a long way towards improving that section of the CBD. Bring activity off of Stephen Ave and closer to the river. There's really nothing in a 3 block radius around there.
 
I don’t want to sound negative but I almost feel like the CBD is a write off. Even if the towers fill back up it’s still mostly an office park on steroids. Years of soul sucking office building street frontages have almost ruined it for good.

The only hope IMO is to get more residents in the CBD and have more retail on the street.
The CBD being a right off has crossed my mind before (at least the portion north of 7th ave). I still think there are some ways to improve it including pedestrian realm improvements to encourage more movement between Eau Claire, the Beltline, Chinatown ext and to encourage more pedestrian oriented business and building uses. The CBD feels like a barrier with the harsh public realm that exists currently.
I don't know the status on this right now, but the "Centre City Enterprise District" was passed by Council a few years back which removed the need for permits for change of use, and to make renovations and alterations to the building among other things. That is a great program but I still think its success is limited by the above
A large brewpub going into Firehall No. 1 would go a long way towards improving that section of the CBD. Bring activity off of Stephen Ave and closer to the river. There's really nothing in a 3 block radius around there.
I would absolutely love to see something like that!
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I don't know if I'd call it a write off. However, I think it will be hard to improve anything along 4, 5, and 6 Aves unless they are narrowed. 5 and 6 Aves should be reduced from 5 to 4 lanes. 4 Ave is already only 4 lanes, but its outside lanes are extremely wide to accommodate parked cars and moving cars side-by-side. If you narrowed these avenues and expanded the sidewalks, you would create the possibility for sidewalk patios and more trees and landscaping. There's no reason why this couldn't look like this. Or this. Hopefully, if the CBD is facing such dire economic prospects, the 'powers that be' will be more open to taking a risk on something like that.

Beyond that, more office-to-residence conversions, as well as growing populations in the East Village, Chinatown, Eau Claire, West Village, and Beltline, all nibbling away at the CBD on the margins. That will all add more foot traffic in the CBD.

CBDs are not the most vibrant part of any city, but many are far more pleasant than Calgary's.
 
I think pretty much everyone agrees that more people living downtown is the key. Office conversions would help. We are obviously a long ways away from seeing new office built, but if there could be more incentive going forward for mixed use buildings, that would be great. Hopefully Telus Sky becomes the norm with a large residential component in the future.

I think that 4th Ave has some potential, as there is already Owen's Landing, The Keg and Celis with patios and the Pig &Duke a little further west. I don't recall the proposal, but there were plans for a bunch of retail on the old Office Depot site and if done well could add to the street life, while adding a bunch of residents.

Getting some of the Streets developed in a pedestrian friendly way would help to make it more likely to see movement between 8th Ave and say a more active 4th ave, as i mentioned above. 4th St. Seems like it would be a good spot to start, as it already has a good connection to the Beltline with the redone underpass and connects to an existing pedestrian area. There is the undeveloped block on between 5th and 6th Ave that could add to the 4th St frontage when development eventually happens, nice park between 6th &7th and the Dorian hotel going in just around the corner from 4 St. It looks like some office buildings along 4th could add small patios on their setbacks as most are street level entrances.
This idea is a little more out there....how about wrapping +15 bridges in LED's like you see on office towers in Shanghai? They can change the displays on a regular basis, be set to music, or potentially
Have interactive components. This would brighten the streets at night giving a safer feeling. I imagine it would be popular with tourists too. This has the advantage of turning the +15 system that kills street life during the day into something that encourages street life at night.
 
There are three keys to improving the CBD IMO. They’ve already been mentioned, but in my opinion it can be summed up by:
- more residents in the general core and the CBD itself
- narrowing the roads or converting some to bi directional
- finding a way to have less businesses in the +15 and more on the street. It might involve the city giving incentives ( lower property tax, etc) to businesses/ landlords that have businesses facing the street.
 
Not a write off, but close. It's a difficult task to turn it around because of the impact of past mistakes, but not impossible. If the city gets serious and creative, there is hope, and maybe someday Calgary will be used as a model on how to reinvent a CBD. Calgary's biggest issue is the amount of CBD office space we have for a city our size coupled with a +15 system, they two factors have made it difficult to turn it around, but it can be done.
I don't know if I'd call it a write off. However, I think it will be hard to improve anything along 4, 5, and 6 Aves unless they are narrowed. 5 and 6 Aves should be reduced from 5 to 4 lanes. 4 Ave is already only 4 lanes, but its outside lanes are extremely wide to accommodate parked cars and moving cars side-by-side. If you narrowed these avenues and expanded the sidewalks, you would create the possibility for sidewalk patios and more trees and landscaping. There's no reason why this couldn't look like this. Or this. Hopefully, if the CBD is facing such dire economic prospects, the 'powers that be' will be more open to taking a risk on something like that.

Beyond that, more office-to-residence conversions, as well as growing populations in the East Village, Chinatown, Eau Claire, West Village, and Beltline, all nibbling away at the CBD on the margins. That will all add more foot traffic in the CBD.

CBDs are not the most vibrant part of any city, but many are far more pleasant than Calgary's.
 
A few thoughts on how to fix the CBD. Most importantly, we need to fully and whole-heartedly acknowledge what the CBD is - an urban place at the centre of the city that holds physical, economic and cultural significance to the wider city, region and ultimately our image to the country and world. Being urban - in all the variety of definitions of that word - is the CBD's only real durable competitive advantage.

Previous attempts that reject the messy, urban reality that is the CBD are the cause of the expensive failure we see today - single use planning sterilized the core and left it susceptible to market collapses of it's primary activity, auto-centric planning sterilized the streets and reduced the attractiveness for everything and anything else to occur here.

Simultaneously, previous attempts that embrace the messy, urban reality that is the CBD's are the foundation of what we can build on in the future - Stephen Avenue heritage restorations, LRT and transit prioritization, among other things.


Along those lines, what we should do:
  • Add more high density, urban amenity uses (housing, hotels; music venues) in and around the CBD
    • Way less corporate event space; way more formal and informal music venues, destination markets and vendors
    • The CBD can be loud, messy and vibrant - it's possibly the only place where we can lean into that
  • Add better, more logical connections to healthier, more successful areas
    • People don't need to live right on Stephen Ave to visit if they can get there easily from Eau Claire, Chinatown and the Beltline
    • Local population is the key missing group to keep the lights on when conditions change and the commuter/visitor/nightlife evaporates for a while (covering everything from snow storms, recessions and global pandemics)
  • Reject nagging suburbanism in all our outdated perceptions of what the city centre and CBD is and could be
    • We don't need the city's standard suburban policies to be applied when urban-specific approaches are needed
      • E.g. snow clearing policy (where each building haphazardly does it's own maintenance). We need policies that reflect the reality that a sidewalk in the CBD is 1,000 - 10,000x more useful as part of the transportation system than a sleepy suburban cul-de-sac. To treat them similarly undermines the attractiveness of downtown
      • E.g. same with all pedestrian and public space policies; the CBD (and wider inner city) need specific rules to make the most of their urban competitive advantage.
    • We don't need more open spaces, we need better urban ones and higher quality pedestrian right-of-ways to connect to existing ones
    • We don't need better car accessibility and parking, we actually need way less because it gets in the way of all the other things urban places need
Calgary CBD / inner city has always struggled because for decades almost everyone involved sees the city as a suburban one first (and often only a suburban one). Even when they are being "urban" they aren't; designing a core for exclusive use of largely car-oriented, office tower commuters is the epitome of a suburban perspective pretending to be urban. It all looked like the right answer because for decades we got lots of shiny tall buildings popping up - masking the failures and fragilities of suburban/commuter hegemony in our thinking.

I hope the silver lining of the collapse of the office - commuter mindset will give room for the new urban ideas to spring through the cracks. They are there, we just need to shake a 60 year hangover to let them loose.
 
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  • Add more high density, urban amenity uses (housing, hotels; music venues) in and around the CBD
    • Way less corporate event space; way more formal and informal music venues, destination markets and vendors
    • The CBD can be loud, messy and vibrant - it's possibly the only place where we can lean into tha
I think a councillor brought up this idea not too long ago about repurposing the Telus Convention Centre. Hopefully something happens as it would be a great location for a more active use like a movie theatre, and/or market and the building appears well suited to repurpose.
 
I think a councillor brought up this idea not too long ago about repurposing the Telus Convention Centre. Hopefully something happens as it would be a great location for a more active use like a movie theatre, and/or market and the building appears well suited to repurpose.
I agree completely. I can't imagine the TCC will attract much business once the BMO expansion is complete. There would be no need to have two convention spaces so close to each other either. There is only so much business to go around.
 
The debate in Edmonton for a long while has many similarities. More people needed to live in downtown, pedestrian friendly sidewalks, less emphasis on pedway (+15).
Downtown Edmonton is still working on all these issues but we're on our way. Other than Stantec all new highrises in the core have been residential, and all have podiums designed to activate the street with businesses. The current renovation on Jasper ave is making the pedestrian realm far better.
As someone who visits Calgary occasionally I will say that as a driver most roads in the Calgary downtown core are definitely good for vehicle movement being nice and wide with multiple lanes. Unfortunately that is not inviting to pedestrians. Comparatively despite the congestion, Chinatown is far more inviting.
 
Two things that would go long way to improving the CBD would be more residents and more businesses with entrances on the street. I can see more residents in the core over time, it won't happen overnight, but it'll happen. More businesses on the street will also happen eventually, just a matter of how long will it take.
 
Unfortunately with such an extensive +15 network, its hard for pedestrians to want to come outside. That has been the problem here in Edmonton. But slowly but surely Edmonton had been reversing that trend and trying to encourage street activation. Hopefully Calgary can do the same.
 

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