[darwink]

They bought the YMCA site in Eau Claire as well I'm pretty sure

Which is odd unless they're planning to use the existing building. The density allowed at the site is pretty minimal (I recall around 160 units, 14-16 floors), and involved various relaxations and density transfers from the master plan developer at the time, Oxford, which the city could relax, but it would upend the density transfer market which the city is using for various purposes including heritage preservation.

Site access also isn't great - it made sense for a master planned development, but as a stand alone parcel?

Look at all the constrains and registered bits on the property, yuck.

The price may have been low enough that the constraints don't matter. The site seems to have had interest or a document registered on it on December 4th

But we don't have a full change yet, probably because either land titles is so backed up right now, or because the sale is conditional.

 

[Disraeli]

I found this article announcing the purchase by Great Gulf back in 2016: https://www.westerninvestor.com/alberta/calgary-block-sold-to-great-gulf-3829240 , so around the time they were active on the YWCA site. Here is a July 2021 article announcing the sale of the site https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/eau-claire-ymca-officially-up-for-sale-after-closure

So putting two and two together, it looks like Great Gulf bought it and is now bailing. It doesn't bode well for their other sties

 

[JonnyCanuck]

I found this article announcing the purchase by Great Gulf back in 2016: https://www.westerninvestor.com/alberta/calgary-block-sold-to-great-gulf-3829240 , so around the time they were active on the YWCA site. Here is a July 2021 article announcing the sale of the site https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/eau-claire-ymca-officially-up-for-sale-after-closure

So putting two and two together, it looks like Great Gulf bought it and is now bailing. It doesn't bode well for their other sties

That July 2021 article is about the YMCA site in Eau Claire

 

[haltcatchfire]

I found this article announcing the purchase by Great Gulf back in 2016: https://www.westerninvestor.com/alberta/calgary-block-sold-to-great-gulf-3829240 , so around the time they were active on the YWCA site. Here is a July 2021 article announcing the sale of the site https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/eau-claire-ymca-officially-up-for-sale-after-closure

So putting two and two together, it looks like Great Gulf bought it and is now bailing. It doesn't bode well for their other sties

That Western Investor article looks like it was written with misunderstanding which property Great Gulf actually bought. They even stole quotes from the Herald article about the YWCA site. https://calgaryherald.com/business/commercial-real-estate/ywca-block-sold-in-downtown-calgary.

They definitely wouldn't be fitting 4 towers on the Eau Claire site too.

 

[Disraeli]

^^^ No question the authors mixed up the two after looking at that Herald article. Doesn't reflect all that well for a site that purports to be about real estate investment

 

[Urb]

Don't know if this has been mentioned before, but I heard word that the Eau Claire YMCA has been acquired, and there's plans for 'meaningful' changes, both in appearance and function.

They are going to demo the YMCA facility and build a residential tower. Telsec is the buyer.

 

[darwink]

They are going to demo the YMCA facility and build a residential tower. Telsec is the buyer.

A travesty. Throwing out a piece of infrastructure built with public money that would cost at least $100 million to replace due to lack of interest from the city.

 

[ByeByeBaby]

A travesty. Throwing out a piece of infrastructure built with public money that would cost at least $100 million to replace due to lack of interest from the city.

It's not a lack of interest. A lack of funding.

Of course, there's funding in Rocky Ridge and Seton and Country Hills for infrastructure, but it's not like the City has any policies to encourage downtown residential development and discourage greenfield sprawl. It's important to "finish" the edge communities, even if it means unfinishing the core of the city.

In all seriousness, how does a city with a $200M downtown strategy not devote a little bit of that to reopening the downtown sports/rec facility?

 

[artvandelay]

Yeah... that's pretty short sighted IMO.

 

[darwink]

It's not a lack of interest. A lack of funding.

Of course, there's funding in Rocky Ridge and Seton and Country Hills for infrastructure, but it's not like the City has any policies to encourage downtown residential development and discourage greenfield sprawl. It's important to "finish" the edge communities, even if it means unfinishing the core of the city.

In all seriousness, how does a city with a $200M downtown strategy not devote a little bit of that to reopening the downtown sports/rec facility?

In all seriousness, council could have taken some of the money for office retrofits, and instead, bought this. Which will benefit the public more in a world where we have 4000+ units under construction today?

 

[Morshed]

It's not a lack of interest. A lack of funding.

Of course, there's funding in Rocky Ridge and Seton and Country Hills for infrastructure, but it's not like the City has any policies to encourage downtown residential development and discourage greenfield sprawl. It's important to "finish" the edge communities, even if it means unfinishing the core of the city.

In all seriousness, how does a city with a $200M downtown strategy not devote a little bit of that to reopening the downtown sports/rec facility?

follow the money...city developers got our city councillors by the leash and they donate money to their campgains, Jyoti is friends with lots of developers. they make more money building houses on the edges of the city, since land is cheaper...i bet city council will approve more communities soon in the name of affordable homes.

 

[Surrealplaces]

Maybe at some point there will be a push for a new YMCA to be located in the core. Might be a good use for one of those empty lots beside the CP tracks.

 

[CBBarnett]

It's not a lack of interest. A lack of funding.

Of course, there's funding in Rocky Ridge and Seton and Country Hills for infrastructure, but it's not like the City has any policies to encourage downtown residential development and discourage greenfield sprawl. It's important to "finish" the edge communities, even if it means unfinishing the core of the city.

In all seriousness, how does a city with a $200M downtown strategy not devote a little bit of that to reopening the downtown sports/rec facility?

I get the feeling that the city's public facility planning has also "suburbanized". I may be not be remembering all of them, but beyond the one-off public library and the YMCA at Eau Claire, has the city built an urban-format community facility in the last 30 years? Last 50 years?

It seems the recreation model is really sticking to this wild $200M, 5+ hectare, 200,000+ sqft with a giant surface parking lot format. I don't think we have the institutional knowledge to build a urban-format recreation centre that's appropriate for the city centre.

I also don't think Vancouver, Montreal or Toronto build giant $200M recreation centres very often/ever. A quick google suggests $30 - $60M is more typical of a recreation centre in these cities on these type of projects. Of course they are smaller and there's not an apples-to-apples comparison, but there's way more of them - and most critically - smaller more nimble facilities can easily fit throughout urban areas where you don't have 5 hectares available.

 

[MichaelS]

A travesty. Throwing out a piece of infrastructure built with public money that would cost at least $100 million to replace due to lack of interest from the city.

This one is a travesty, but throwing away the Saddledome isn't?....... Anyway, probably a lot more nuance to it than that, and maybe I am being a bit of an ass this morning, but that is my first thought when I read your response to this one.

In terms of downtown recreational amenities, the loss of the YMCA is a major blow. It literally was a big factor in my family's decision to move out of downtown (my wife used it near daily pre-covid). However, I have heard it is very difficult to plan/fund new recreation facilities in the core, due to most of the new residential complexes having their own amenities within them. Why buy a membership at the YMCA when your apartment/condo building has a professional grade gym and even a pool in some instances? The city did extend the life of the Beltline aquatic centre, along with Inglewood, with a "use it or lose it" clause. I think COVID wrecked that plan (can't remember completely the timeline/outcome). But, the reason the Beltline Aquatic centre was on the chopping block was low usage. Tough to justify spending big money on something that by many measures, doesn't appear as though it will get used.

 

[zagox]

This one is a travesty, but throwing away the Saddledome isn't?.......

If there were a plan to build a nicer, newer rec centre next door, I wouldn't have any issue with this.

The current situation is more equivalent to the Stampede selling the Saddledome site to a residential developer and the Flames moving to a new building in Seton.

My kid didn't want to go to the Eau Claire YMCA because there's no wave pool, no lazy river, none of the fun cool stuff at the Rocky Ridge or Seton YMCAs. So we drive 30 minutes from Sunnyside rather than walking 15 minutes to Eau Claire. Expectations from a city rec centre are higher in 2022 than 1988, for better or worse, and there is a case for a new downtown facility. But I see zero will for it as of yet.