There are some beautiful things in downtown Calgary and some ugly things – not so many of the latter since a rebuilding phase a couple of oil booms ago.
But one of downtown’s least attractive elements will soon be on track for a facelift, with the first $5.2-million phase of redevelopment of the 7th Avenue transit corridor expected this year.
It’s about time.
Bill Partridge, executive vice- president of BOMA Calgary, says the Building Owners and Managers Association chapter has supported the idea since it was first suggested.
“In its present configuration, 7th Avenue is the grungy back alley of downtown,” he says. “We have a lot of things to spend money on, but if we’re going to make the system work, we have to make it pleasant to be there.”
The transit system has to include “quality elements for a quality downtown,” adds Partridge.
The inner city remains important to Calgary. It contains governance, justice, offices and three million square feet of shopping as well as transportation.
Richard White, executive director of the Calgary Downtown Association, says the stations are functional and cost effective, but not attractive.
“This is something we’ve been working on for seven years,” he says of the upgrading.
“For transit users (7th Avenue) is the front door of downtown,” White adds. For those living downtown or visiting the city, the C-Train is also the most efficient route to Stampede Park.
“Seventh Avenue is really the backbone of downtown,” says White. The avenue is home to city hall, the Calgary Public Library, the Telus Convention Centre, the Bay, TD Square, Sears, the courthouse, Century Gardens and essentially the Science Centre and Millennium Park.
Upgrading will have economic effects in higher tax revenue. “It’s an investment as opposed to an expenditure,” says White. Tom Farley, senior vice-president of Brookfield Properties, a major downtown landlord, notes the importance of the LRT to the downtown area. “I fully support their plans to improve 7th Avenue,” he said.
Domenic Mazzocchi, a director of property management for Oxford Properties – which manages Scotia Centre and several other buildings on the avenue is optimistic.
“I like what I saw. I think they’re on the right track,” he says.
The upgrading would “take an LRT street with people on it and turn it into a people street with LRT on it.”
Two Calgary architecture firms, Graham Edmunds Cartier and Sturgess Architecture, will work on the $72.9-million project. The Transportation Project Office, a public-private entity, will manage the program.
Ald. Druh Farrell, whose Ward 7 includes part of downtown and who is a long-time advocate of the city centre, says she had been promoting the upgrade for three years. Funding for the first phase was in last year’s budget “and now we’re planning it,” she said.
Cameron Gillies of Sturgess Architecture says that the upgrades will run from the East Village, about two and a half blocks east of where the LRT tracks swing south out of downtown. Work on a master plan for the entire length of 7th Avenue has been going on for about a year and a half.
It’s a phased, six-year plan. The first phase is the two blocks between Centre Street and 2nd Street S.W., and includes Scotia Centre, the Len Werry building, The Bay and the old Herald building, he said.
C-Train stations will be twinned and moved so that east- and westbound trains stop in the same blocks instead of being staggered as they are now. Alternate blocks will feature more landscaping.
The first phase won’t involve actual twinning, but one station – on the north side of 7th Avenue west of 1st Street, will be moved half a block east.
Sidewalks will be widened where possible.
A bus bay could be created farther west at Scotia Centre, where there is already a wide sidewalk, says Gillies. “With an already-built avenue, the exercise is as much about just trying to more effectively utilize what’s already there as anything,” he adds.
Part of the overall design is to bring lamp standards, trees and bus shelters into one complete design, addressing pedestrian, business and safety issues.
For example, one tenet of the plan is to do away with the sidewalk-platform split. Currently the stations are half a level up from the business and commercial locations on the blocks. Sidewalks will be ramped up at the ends of station blocks to put them at platform level, he says.
“When you’re on the sidewalk, you’re on the platform,” he adds, noting that additional trees and benches may also attract more office workers over the lunch hour.
Norm Harburn, executive director of the Calgary Parks Foundation, says the trees could be some of the nicest and biggest trees in downtown Calgary, citing as examples the large American elms in front of City Hall. Elms planted in troughs with installed irrigation could grow to canopy right over the trains, he says.
Calgary Transit spokesman Ron Collins says officials don’t anticipate many commuter hassles during the project because of the phased nature of the work.
MEETING CENTRE OPENS
A new business centre is taking shape in one of Calgary’s original skyscrapers.
The Meeting Place will be on the 10th floor of the Barron Building, 610 8 Ave. S.W,. and will operate more like a club than a business centre, says founder Stephen Dull. It will feature workstations, offices for individuals and teams, high-speed wired and wireless Internet connections, telephone answering service and a cafe.
The tan brick building with the Art Deco structure is a piece of Calgary history – built in 1951, it helped draw oil company offices to Calgary during the region’s second oil boom.
Blake O’Brien, president of Newel Post Developments, owner of the Barron Building, said the building is 60-per-cent occupied. There are retail spaces of 1,200 sq. ft. and 650 sq. ft. available as well as offices and build-to-suit space on several floors.
