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Originally Posted by mersar
(Calgary) The West End of Calgary’s Downtown will see a major transformation over the next 25 years, as City Council today approved moving forward with a comprehensive redevelopment plan. The area, comprised of 111 acres and scattered with light industrial uses such as car lots and bus terminals, will eventually become a new downtown mixed-use community and home to more than 12,000 people. “West Village” as the area is now known is located between 11th Street S.W. and Crowchild Trail, and the Bow River south to the CPR tracks.
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Wow, this sounds promising! I think these kinds of plans go well with the plans for making Calgary a potential home to global finance operations. Also, I think it would be a good location for that footy park Innersoul and I dream about!
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Originally Posted by Bigtime
I have a concern, let me know if I am completely off my rocker here.
Are we spreading ourselves to thin with all of these new "villages"?
Thoughts?
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This is a great question Bigtime! Like others have said, the timeline for this Village compared to others' are rather different. If the West Village has to wait as long as for a Master Plan as the EV did, it might not even start before most of the EV is built out. However, if it doesn't take as long I think it will help provide opportunities for small development companies. If the whole Urban Village concept catches on with local developers, smaller development companies might get pushed out if we have too few Villages to develop. With the City taking a proactive role and really jumping on the bandwagon, I think they are forming a path for organic growth to be fueled by a variety of developers.
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Originally Posted by fusili
I remember a few of us having this conversation quite some time ago. Using a TIF to fund development in this area. But I agree with Bigtime. We seem to be spending a lot of money creating these new "urban villages" but we seem to be neglecting existing areas that can handle a significant amount of increased density with nowhere near the infrastructure costs. Redesigning 1st street, or 8th Street, or 10th Avenue is a fraction of the cost of rerouting Bow Trail.
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I believe that brown and greyfield development on larger and open plots like the EV and WV are more appealing to developers; they are much easier and less risky to develop. The way I see it is that this is how the City is selling infill development to developers. It may be more expensive than piecemeal development in the Beltline but if this is how we are going to get developers buy into the 'it doesn't have to be all about greenfield development' mentality, so be it. I think we can all admit that any high-quality brownfield development is better than no brownfield development.