New Downtown Calgary Arena

[Policy Wonk]

When I contemplate a project like this I want to see it take a form that is highly transformative. In the US the West Village would be a superfund site, this land is worth tens of millions less than zero. A single billion-dollar project like this is an excellent opportunity to remediate and redevelop this wasteland.

But it will happen eventually with or without it. This will in time be Calgary's last large developable riverfront property and eventually the province or federal government will have to step up. On the other hand, Firestone probably won't look much different fifty years from now otherwise.

I think Firestone would be an excellent location working on the assumption of a L.A. Live type development of which theatres and dining are a major component. What makes L.A. Live viable on a day to day basis is the 12,000 theatre seats that bring traffic to the resturants even when the Staples Center is idle.

[Calgarian]

Originally Posted by speedog

Goodness sakes, some of you have others on ignore and yet you still respond in kind. This all sounds too much like a bunch of 4 year olds at the playground.

Easy there, I was posting in agreement with Craner. We all know Suburbia wants the arena in firepark, but we have discussed it to death. I told him not to respond for 2 reasons; 1 I have him on ignore and won't see or respond, and 2, as I said we all know his point, so why keep going on and on about it?

Personally, I still think rail town is best but the west village will probably get the nod.

I agree Railtown would be good, though the distance to transit may be a bit far, and I think there is going to be an HSR station in there somewhere, so I'm not sure there would be space for a stadium and arena, unless they city bus barn got demolished. West Village will need the remediation, and obviously the city and province will have to foot the bill. The city could probably recoup their money through a CRL of sorts, but I don't think a stadium and arena will provide the revenue needed, and I'm not sure how big of an entertainment district you could fit around all of that. I guess my point is that there aren't really any good options here, all will require a compromise from the city, and will ultimately involve some sort of public money.

[Policy Wonk]

Originally Posted by McMurph

Clearly the Flames won't be on the hook for remediating the site, but there are corporations out there that ought to be. Here's what the ESRD says about the matter:

Domtar Corporation was the last known owner and operator of this site; however, the corporation no longer exists as a corporate entity in the Province of Alberta. This prevents the Government of Alberta from enforcing the polluter pays principles of the Environment Protection and Enhancement Act. As such, we are working on remediation and monitoring of this site in partnership with the City of Calgary.

I would love to know when the site was transferred from Canada Creosote to Domtar (Dominion Tar) I heard a couple years ago a German company was a possible corporate successor to Canada Creosote.

[McMurph]

Originally Posted by Tropics

Given they are being given the land for free by the city they can absolutely be required to facilitate and pay for the cleanup as part of the deal.

I think you're getting ahead of yourself here. There is a location and a general sense of the scale of the proposal, but there have been no specifics of how it's all going to be put together. Unless you're an aide to either Ken King or Nenshi and were present for some sort of secret deal, in which case you really ought to leak us a render. In any case giving the Flames "the land for free" on the condition that they clean it up is the equivalent of the city paying to remediate the site.

FWIW Domtar still exists (now part of Weyerhauser?). Alberta just can't go after them. I'm not going to chain myself to a fence or anything down there and insist that they pay, I just want to point out that when it comes to that site people are rightly aghast at the idea of subsidizing the Flames while apparently content that we're already spending public money to clean up a private mess.

[johnnybegaudreau]

did this over on calgarypuck as well. But here's a little sample of something that could be done.

I'm think elevated street down what used to be 16th avenue with the boulevard streets set at level grade and bar/restaraunts above sort of like 7th avenue downtown with the train platforms. A nice stair case on either side that leads down into the stadium-filedhouse and arena. The retail/restaraunts bars can have sidewalk front dsiplays and tables outdoors for nice weather with river views etc.

West Village with bowtrail realignment and urbanized boulevards.
Purple = retail/restaraunt/office mixed used
Orange = arena
Red = football stadium field house combo
Pink = hotel/casino
Dark grey = parkade/parking
light grey area = future residential
light blue = pumphouse theater

Facing South across bow river.

Facing West from DT Calgary.

Facing East towards DT.

Facing North over the LRT


My guess is the Flames will make one complex for the CFL stadium which will have roughly 20,000 seats for regular season cfl games. Due to the fact however that CFL only runs like 10 regular season games and is once a week for all of 4 months. This stadium would also serve as the public fieldhouse which for the rest of the time would be used as a convertible buildng. Volleyball courts, badminton courts, a super fancy track for track and field and field events. It could be used to host small volleyball/badminton/soccer/fieldhockey championship type games for smaller clubs/events with the seating capacity able to drop down to 10,000. Even thinking of the future PDL team here. However the seating capacity would also be able to expand to 40,000 for the grey cup and or future potential MLS expansion. Stadium would be roofed completely. It also provides as potentially the main venue for all future concerts/or at least as a backup plan for smaller concerts that only want to seat 15000 instead of 20-30 like the arena would.

[Policy Wonk]

Originally Posted by McMurph

FWIW Domtar still exists (now part of Weyerhauser?). Alberta just can't go after them. I'm not going to chain myself to a fence or anything down there and insist that they pay, I just want to point out that when it comes to that site people are rightly aghast at the idea of subsidizing the Flames while apparently content that we're already spending public money to clean up a private mess.

Just because a company exists, doesn't mean that the liability for something still resides with that company. If there was some avenue to dump this at the feet of the CPR or Domtar or whoever else they probably would have done that at the time of the original remediation.

But these are all vague recollections to me now,

[McMurph]

It's nice to see the massing trying to get everything in. However, there is no way they should put parking along the river (especially with rail and partially elevated highways fronting the other side). The river interface of this whole thing is going to be hugely important, and difficult to get right.

[johnnybegaudreau]

exactly mcmurph.

hence why i put the parking at the back infront of 9th avenue towards the CPR tracks.

the light grey is what i'd see as being future condo development for residential.

[The Fisher Account]

Should we expect a practice facility as well? That's something that doesn't come up but I know is becoming more and more common with these types of venues.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by The Fisher Account

Should we expect a practice facility as well? That's something that doesn't come up but I know is becoming more and more common with these types of venues.

They can practice on Bow Trail. Deek left!

[McMurph]

Originally Posted by johnnybegaudreau

exactly mcmurph.

hence why i put the parking at the back infront of 9th avenue towards the CPR tracks.

the light grey is what i'd see as being future condo development for residential.

whoops. my bad. light grey / dark grey colour blind.

[bt04ku]

Originally Posted by The Fisher Account

Should we expect a practice facility as well? That's something that doesn't come up but I know is becoming more and more common with these types of venues.

It usually isn't at the venue itself (only the Blue Jackets and Devils have them as part of their main rink) but practice facilities are basically a must nowadays. Sharing arenas with other teams, concerts and everything else can mean you need to find alternate practice ice anyways, so the ability to have a 'home away from home' for training is definitely a big factor.

Some examples would be The Habs practice in Brossard, the Jets practice on the far west side, the Maple Leafs in Etobicoke etc. To be honest the Flames should have been a part of the Athletic and Ice Complex at Winsport, helping to double down on the high performance centre and get their own rink in there along with Hockey Canada's. But I guess they've had other plans, because a practice facility is definitely on their radar (at least according to Burke).

I suppose the fieldhouse could be designed so that is also has a practice rink, but I guess we will wait and see.

[The Fisher Account]

Originally Posted by bt04ku

It usually isn't at the venue itself (only the Blue Jackets and Devils have them as part of their main rink) but practice facilities are basically a must nowadays.

That's kind of what I'm getting at. Having the facility on the same grounds as the arena.

[Tropics]

Originally Posted by johnnybegaudreau

did this over on calgarypuck as well. But here's a little sample of something that could be done.

If this ultimately goes ahead I would hope they go purely underground parking for the site. <edit, removed color blindness</edit>. With the cleanup of the site being needed to be done anyhow I would imagine they will be removing a lot of dirt. Might as well dig out 3 stories or so of parking and make the upper surface a pedestrian and transit orientated area that links in very well to the riverfront pathway system.

It might be expensive to build the underground parking, but lets be honest, it is going to cost close to $20 to park for an event (hockey game, concert, football game) no matter what they build (surface or underground) for those that choose to drive there.

[Tropics]

Originally Posted by McMurph

whoops. my bad. light grey / dark grey colour blind.

Ya, me too... slightly ignore the above post. That is a microscopic dark grey parking lot. I think they should just go 100% underground still, forget surface parking beyond short term pickup/cell phone lots.

[The Fisher Account]

Originally Posted by Tropics

If this ultimately goes ahead I would hope they go purely underground parking for the site. <edit, removed color blindness</edit>. With the cleanup of the site being needed to be done anyhow I would imagine they will be removing a lot of dirt. Might as well dig out 3 stories or so of parking and make the upper surface a pedestrian and transit orientated area that links in very well to the riverfront pathway system.

It might be expensive to build the underground parking, but lets be honest, it is going to cost close to $20 to park for an event (hockey game, concert, football game) no matter what they build (surface or underground) for those that choose to drive there.

No way they DON'T build a massive underground parkade. They want to maximize the surface area of this complex as much as possible

[Chadillaccc]

I used to think Railtown was the best... but just for the potential of building it all from scratch here, plus everything around it... man, what an opportunity for this city!




http://www.peakaerials.com/project-sheet/west-lrt/#

[bt04ku]

Originally Posted by The Fisher Account

That's kind of what I'm getting at. Having the facility on the same grounds as the arena.

That would definitely depend on what they want to do with the fieldhouse. The idea of it is to have an indoor practice field for the Stampeders, so adding a rink and the necessary infrastructure shouldn't be too hard.

[fusili]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Remediating the creosote, or at the very least preventing the existing creosote from migrating further will require a public subsidy no matter what.

Claiming residential development would pay for it is just another accounting exercise unless the city puts a levy on top of the normal property taxes for the area. Until there aren't development sites in the Beltline anymore I don't think it is honest to call new residential development induced and not just displaced/moved by Community Revitalization Zone neighbourhood infrastructure improvements.

Not that I don't like the East Village. I think it was totally worth it to spend public money on kickstarting a new neighbourhood with lots of public benefits.

I see your point. I did a high level exercise once looking at potential development sites in the Beltline. The criteria I used was the site had to be at least 1/3 of a block and could not have more than a 3 storey building on it, no heritage buildings and no existing condos (at least from what I knew). I came up with 150 potential sites.

[nick.flood]

delete