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Originally Posted by Saskabusher
Thanks for the pictures, CDYXE! The riverbank is such a great place to be, and you got it with the boat, Shakespeare, ferris wheel, wheat and the big sky all in Saskatoon. You can't get more prairie than that for a city. Wheat Kings have all their treasures buried....
Anyway, would be nice for that massive crane to disappear now. Good luck to them.
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The two Baydo towers will have quite an impact on the skyline at the north end of downtown. Thanks for the update CDYXE. I am interested to see what it will look like when the entire project is completed. The towers are no architectural masterpieces for sure but I am glad to see some density happening in that area.
Saskatoon is so fortunate to have things like the Prairie Lily river cruise, Nutrien Playland at Kinsmen Park, Nutrien Wonderhub, Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan, Scotiabank Theatre, Remai Modern, Persephone Theatre, Gather Market, the Meewasin Valley Trail system, the upcoming bus barns redevelopment (borderline core), etc. to help keep some vibrancy in the core. At least not everything is racing to the suburbs as it appears to be in the southern sister city. Saskatoon is still retaining the Hudson's Bay store in Midtown for the time being at least. Of course there needs to be a change to combat the excessively high crime rate in the city. Saskatoon is a real gem that is in need of some shining up. High crime tends to tarnish things to some degree.
The Spire would have added a more up-to-date look to that area. Perhaps one day it will. I do hope that it is not entirely shelved. Lots of infill potential downtown but so many things would have to fall into place. Perhaps Cameco would relocate downtown (not likely) to a shiny new office tower, BHP needing more space downtown, etc. (again not too likely).
The project on Eastlake Avenue and new office building both look promising but I wish that the new additions to the skyline were on the downtown side of the river. Broadway appears to be evolving into a downtown annex. I also wonder if the proposed condo tower at the top of the University Bridge will ever see the light of day.
The last place that I lived in Saskatoon was The Milroy (now The View on Fifth). It was a great location back in the early 1980's as there were three full service grocery stores downtown at that time. I am sure that an Independent or No Frills would help to spark more residential development in the core. Still ticked off that Pitchfork Market and Midtown management could not come to an agreement. Not the greatest location for a market but, it would have been better than nothing. Midtown was home to a Dominion supermarket when it first opened in the early 70's. Safeway was attached at the north end of the former Hudson's Bay store and there was an OK Economy close to the old Army and Navy Store.
When I first moved to the Beltline neighbourhood of Calgary, there was a Safeway on 8th St. SW and one on 4th St. SW. Don't recall any others in the neigbourhood. Calgary Co-op built in the neighbourhood in the early 2000's and was joined later by Sunterra Market. There's a Save On Foods (formerly Urban Fare) in Mount Royal Village West and scaled down version of a Real Canadian Superstore (80,000+ square feet) in the East Village near the new public library.
I know that Calgary is considerably larger than Saskatoon but given the difference, if Calgary can support six fairly large grocery stores in the core area then Saskatoon should be able to support at least one. Vancouver of course is in it's own category and easily has the most vibrant downtown in Western Canada. It was great to live on the coast for nearly sixteen years but, realistically not so much once retired. Oh well.
I certainly went off on a tangent from the original post but us old guys do tend to do that mostly unintentionally. LOL.
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In terms of entertainment value, this project has been one of the best!
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