If it doesn't get developed, someone else will take over the place and start up a new resto/pub.
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- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
UrbanWarrior
Senior Member
Exactly. Too good of a location with an ongoing population explosion within 3 blocks in all directions underway.
Mountain Man
Senior Member
Apparently the building needs some major renovations, so I guess it will be up to the owner whether or not it continues as a restaurant / pub, or gets demolished for condos. Would be a great location for a tower with a restaurant space in the bottom, doubt that patio could be recreated though.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
At risk of speaking ill of the dead - it was time for a change.
Rose and Crown design/programming ideas were stuck in the 1980s, lots of the clientele were stuck in that era too. As they aged out and the times change, the place didn't reinvent itself fast enough. It was one of the few remaining "driving bars" in the area where the main entrance fronts onto a large parking lot down the alley. One of the classic counter-intuitive parking examples - a bar that celebrates drinking while also encourages driving. All in a neighbourhood that has seen explosive, pedestrian-focused growth.
Meanwhile the entrances to 4 Street and 15 Avenue were walled off, with an impermeable raised patio. While some people like the pseudo-privacy of sitting behind a big wall between you and the street, it limited the bar's options to reinvent itself as a destination. As a pedestrian walking by daily for over a decade, it became pretty easy to forget when passing by - appeared closed nearly all the time thanks to an unwelcoming frontage. As a friend once described it in the early 2010s "just a boring old person's bar with bad beer in a cool old house".
It's also a good example of the uncanny "meh" valley that many 1980s/1990s Calgary Irish/English bars fall into - not cheap or quirky enough to be on the dive bar circuit, not new enough to be on the trendy new bar circuit, food was not good enough to be on the food circuit, beer was not good enough to be on the craft beer circuit, not popular enough on the live music circuit. In short - just increasingly "meh" and forgettable except for the shrinking nostalgic crowd for a bar of their younger days.
From the main streets nearby, its a very poor design for a bar looking for patrons walking by - nothing about it screams "you should pop in here for a drink and a good time". There's no way to know if it's busy or popular from the street. The entrance is tucked way around back, down a muddy, dirty alley. Below, neither of the two visible entrances are the actual entrance. Planters haven't been maintained in years with plants and cheap retaining wall/gravel was used during the patio redo from mid-2010s.
2019 view:
Rose and Crown had it's time and it's fans - and a long run which should be celebrated for sure, bars are impossibly hard to operating through ever changing consumer tastes and economic conditions. Unfortunately being around for a while in an old cool house proves to eventually not be enough. Time to move on either as a more neighbourhood-focused old house bar or a redevelopment. Anything that improves the street frontage and takes out the oversized parking lot would be a major win.
Rose and Crown design/programming ideas were stuck in the 1980s, lots of the clientele were stuck in that era too. As they aged out and the times change, the place didn't reinvent itself fast enough. It was one of the few remaining "driving bars" in the area where the main entrance fronts onto a large parking lot down the alley. One of the classic counter-intuitive parking examples - a bar that celebrates drinking while also encourages driving. All in a neighbourhood that has seen explosive, pedestrian-focused growth.
Meanwhile the entrances to 4 Street and 15 Avenue were walled off, with an impermeable raised patio. While some people like the pseudo-privacy of sitting behind a big wall between you and the street, it limited the bar's options to reinvent itself as a destination. As a pedestrian walking by daily for over a decade, it became pretty easy to forget when passing by - appeared closed nearly all the time thanks to an unwelcoming frontage. As a friend once described it in the early 2010s "just a boring old person's bar with bad beer in a cool old house".
It's also a good example of the uncanny "meh" valley that many 1980s/1990s Calgary Irish/English bars fall into - not cheap or quirky enough to be on the dive bar circuit, not new enough to be on the trendy new bar circuit, food was not good enough to be on the food circuit, beer was not good enough to be on the craft beer circuit, not popular enough on the live music circuit. In short - just increasingly "meh" and forgettable except for the shrinking nostalgic crowd for a bar of their younger days.
From the main streets nearby, its a very poor design for a bar looking for patrons walking by - nothing about it screams "you should pop in here for a drink and a good time". There's no way to know if it's busy or popular from the street. The entrance is tucked way around back, down a muddy, dirty alley. Below, neither of the two visible entrances are the actual entrance. Planters haven't been maintained in years with plants and cheap retaining wall/gravel was used during the patio redo from mid-2010s.
2019 view:
Rose and Crown had it's time and it's fans - and a long run which should be celebrated for sure, bars are impossibly hard to operating through ever changing consumer tastes and economic conditions. Unfortunately being around for a while in an old cool house proves to eventually not be enough. Time to move on either as a more neighbourhood-focused old house bar or a redevelopment. Anything that improves the street frontage and takes out the oversized parking lot would be a major win.
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artvandelay
Active Member
Agreed about the Rose & Crown - also, every time I've ordered a draft beer there in the past year or so it's been flat!
I feel bad for the old British guys would would go there every day - they even had their own special section of the bar.
I feel bad for the old British guys would would go there every day - they even had their own special section of the bar.
DougB
Active Member
It will likley be another residential tower. Mission has come a long ways.
I went to St. Mary's HS. 4th St was really sketchy back then with porn theatres and strip clubs.
Looks like the old Kensington Manor site was purchased by Maple Properties. Good in the sense that Maple has already built and finished projects in Calgary , but negative in the sense that their projects have been pretty banal. Let's hope they up their game a bit.
globalnews.ca
City of Calgary recoups costs after sale of former Kensington Manor site - Calgary | Globalnews.ca
The City of Calgary said it received full payment of all the taxes owed on the property, which included demolition costs, after the property went through foreclosure in late 2022.
globalnews.ca
outoftheice
Active Member
Are there any threads on the site that deal with recent projects by Maple Properties to give some context on the kind of stuff they build? That Kensington Manor property is such a key site that it would be disappointing if we got something bland.
haltcatchfire
Senior Member
potatopizzafan
Active Member
YourBoy007
Active Member
JonnyCanuck
Senior Member
They were also going to develop the Highland Park golf course site but that became such a fiasco with the community and the city.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
Both these projects in the Beltline are okay buildings, but largely forgettable. If the Kensington project develops like the Beltline examples, one thing the community should fight back against ugly rental signage. Walking by the Beltline ones regularly the signs are not only tacky, but also frustratingly blocking parts of the sidewalk.
The OCD side of me can't forgive them for not putting these sign at 45 degrees to the intersection either - the development controls likely required them to angle the sidewalk 45 degrees to the corner and everything. What's the point of requiring 45-degree cut-back from the intersection and then wall it in with a sign later? The first sign is also lit brightly at night on a residential only side-street:
It's a small complaint but really makes the development more trashy-looking than it needs to be.
It reveals a lack of attention to detail or understanding of the community context to have large, back-lit signs permanently blocking the sidewalk on side-streets of urban pedestrian communities. I am sure there's examples out there but I can't recall any other major Canadian city I have spent time in having this issue with signage.
haltcatchfire
Senior Member
They should also water their grass.