The view to the west is all action – while to the east the calm green grass runs like a river.

The Shaw Millennium Park west of Mewata Armories in Calgary combines the high-charged excitement of a skateboard park and an oasis of a downtown park with the distinctive Millennium Tower loftily presiding over all.

Photo courtesy Prairie Design Awards
The Millennium Tower, which features shooting lasers, has been awarded one of eight Prairie architectural design honours.

The Calgary millennium commemorative project was one of eight Prairie architectural designs honored recently at the second anniversary of the Prairie Design Awards.

An art gallery building in Calgary’s Beltline was also recognized, and a downtown Edmonton project won an award of merit.

The awards, a joint initiative of the Manitoba Association of Architects, the Alberta Association of Architects and the Saskatchewan Association of Architects, were presented earlier this month at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

The Shaw Millennium landmark – designed by John Brown Architect Ltd. in association with Stantec Achitecture Ltd. – had two big challenges. It had to act as a support facility for the skateboard park, and at the same time commemorate the year 2000, an event which came with its own expiry date.

Brown, an architecture professor at the University of Calgary, led a student group in the conceptual design for the landmark, which was to be placed in a designated circular area.

His company was hired to do the architectural design, with the working drawings being done by Stantec Architecture. Summa Management was the contractor on the project.

Photo courtesy Prairie Design Awards
The Newzones Gallery of Contemporary Art was another design honoured at the recent Prairie Design Awards.

The concrete base structure of the tower includes washrooms, parks department storage, a food kiosk and a viewing area, with a ramp around the building for wheelchair access.

The top of the landmark is a tower of light that appears only on important civic occasions. Two lasers in the structure shoot light up a chimney, where it’s reflected to 24 mirror poles and redirected upwards in a laser tower 2,000 feet high.

The light tower, about twice as tall as the business towers to the east, is a landmark for the present rather than the past.

“Apparently, you can see it from space,” Brown says. A second Calgary project, Newzones Gallery of Contemporary Art, won an award of excellence for Peter Lawrence Wood Studio.

The free-standing building is located in the 700 block of 11th Avenue S.W.

Edmonton’s Telus Plaza redevelopment won an award of merit for Stantec Architecture Ltd.

The Women’s Television Network offices in Winnipeg also won an award of merit.

Other awards of excellence included:

* Chisholm House, a renovation to a private home in Calgary by architect Marc Boutin.

* Climate Change Field Station in Winnipeg, unbuilt design by Syverson Monteyne Architecture.

* Hybrid Production in Winnipeg, student work by Travis Cooke, integrating a brewery and an art production facility in the downtown.

* Truss House, an unbuilt design for Pender Island, B.C., by Marc Boutin.

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It’s almost as if an entire office building is missing from downtown – but it’s expected to be back later this year.

Vacancies have gone up in both downtown and suburban offices this quarter, says Mike Gigliuk, research director for CB Richard Ellis Alberta Ltd. The downtown vacancy rate is up to 12.5 per cent from 11.7 per cent in the first quarter, which translates to negative absorption of 111,000 sq. ft. For the year so far, the increase in vacancy downtown amounts to 387,200 sq. ft.

If you imagine an office building with a 20,000-sq.-ft. floor plate, the new vacancy is the equivalent of almost 20 storeys. But they shouldn’t remain vacant for long.

“Our view of the downtown market is that we may have seen the bottom. There should be a turnaround in the second and third quarters,” says Gigliuk.

Oil and gas company drilling programs are coming to fruition and rising production means they’ll have to hire more people to manage the production, he says.

The suburban market shows an increase in vacancy to 14.6 per cent from 13.3 per cent in the previous quarter. The market has seen contraction in the communications and high-tech industries.

Construction has slowed and there isn’t the build-to-suit activity normally seen. “We aren’t as optimistic for a turnaround in the third quarter, but perhaps in the fourth quarter,” he says of the suburban office market. The industrial market is steady at four per cent vacancy, with space being absorbed as it’s built. Gigliuk adds it’s a balanced, healthy market that is close to structural vacancy.


(Murdoch Macleod can be reached at murdoch@businessedge.ca)