CBD or not CBD?
 

There was some discussion in the Canada skyline thread regarding the vibrancy of Calgary's CBD, so I thought I'd move the discussion here.

Calgary's CBD....an area of roughly 8 or 9 blocks east to west and roughly 6 blocks north to south is mostly office buildings, and other than Stephen Ave, 8th street, and 1st Street SW, it's pretty quiet on evenings and weekends. Do we need to work on getting it more vibrant or is having it surrounded by vibrant neighborhoods the way to go?

Here are my thoughts as posted in the other thread.

100% that cities should develop their cores and control sprawl, I just don't think it's the be all end all that an 8 block by 6 block area of office buildings in the core needs to be vibrant. As long as adjacent neighborhoods like Kensington, EV, Beltline, Mission, Bridgeland etc are vibrant...it's all good.

You could compare Calgary to a city like San Francisco, where you have a financial district that's mostly office buildings clumped in one area but surrounded by vibrant neighborhoods like Filmore, SOMA, North Beach, Chinatown, etc..

That said, I'm not opposed to more residential in the CBD. Eau Claire has an opportunity for much more residential.

The CBD will never have the evening/weekend life of other parts of the city can/should have - but should have a reasonable level of activity at all times, even if it's just people passing through. I think the number one thing that needs to happen is to make it a more pedestrian-friendly. Better sidewalks, better lighting so that it's more inviting. Ensure the pockets that do have a chance to bring life - Stephen Avenue, 7th avenue keep improving and attracting people.

If places around the CBD like the Beltline, East Village, Chinatown and Eau Claire live up to their potential as vibrant mixed use places no one will care or even think about whether the CBD has a ton of life or not outside business hours. If Eau Claire improves and can become a people-magnet - the CBD will automatically be busier as people walk between the mall or 7th Avenue and Eau Claire. This is the effect you have in Toronto - no one goes to Bay street to hang out on a Sunday, but you do have enough people just walking through to St. Lawrence or other places that it doesn't feel abandoned.

The problem for me is that while pockets of activity do exist, the pedestrian linkages to those pockets are pretty weak. They are all fairly isolated and require trudging through sleepy office or residential blocks with few indicators to say "party town this way!"

I like it and it will improve with conversation. Saying how nice it is getting will help it improve far more than pointing out the negative qualities all the time. It is far better than 5 years ago. Developments like Hotel Germain help alot, but we need slightly more affordable options to bring more of the 20 - 30 year olds downtown. The top floor of Germain rents for 13,000 per month.

Agreed. 8th street and 1st street SW are the best opportunity for connection between areas. 8th street is improving and will be a great link between Beltline and Kensington after a few develops such as Mark on 10th, new underpass, and also once those parcels of land near Louise Bridge get developed. 1st Street SW has great potential to be a link between Beltline and Eau Claire. It's already a good street, it just needs more life north of 6th ave.

After hours activity of the downtown commercial core is far better than 5 years ago and light years better than it was 15 years ago.

Agreed. I spent the Holidays in and around Toronto, and you are right. We stayed on Queen and Spadina (my girlfriend used to live just off Queen and John). Queen west or King West are really great places, but Bay Street isn't that active during the evening.

What I do find about Calgary is that we don't really have any north/south active streets in the Centre City, save for 4th street, south of 17th, and 8th street (to a very limited extent). This is mostly due to the orientation of blocks, but having a connection between Stephan Avenue, Eau Clair and 17th would be beneficial. Barclay mall does the best to connect to Eau Clair, and I guess 4th street connects to 17th, but both could be strengthened.

What you really need is a Brad Lamb voodoo doll.

What you guys want isn't going to come out of a condo boom, it is going to come out of the inevitable condo bust. The buildings aren't going to go away, just the stupid money that built them in the first place.

Look at London historically (90's recession) or Miami today.

I absolutely love this whole comment. Especially the insight in the bolded part.

Over the holidays I watched a Canadian-made documentary on condos (thanks Netflix!) that heavily featured Brad Lamb. He basically talks openly about how he knows he's screwing over the market, and cities, with how he operates. The man has not an ounce of shame.

You hit the nail on the head. It's the way many of buildings on the north south corridors are aligned. Most of the time they are just the sides of buildings, and the primary street fronts are on the east-west sides. 8th street and fourth, and I would say 1st sw are the only streets that have storefronts and thus the reason they are the busiest.

Sounds like that could be interesting, Worth the watch? What is it called?

Damnit, I can't remember. And Netflix isn't showing it in my recently viewed, for some reason. A bit of Googling doesn't bring anything up either.

It was fairly short (15-20 mins?) and not that interesting - almost like a student film more than anything. But listening to Lamb pretty much laugh at his customer base was ... a unique experience. The guy is an unapologetic douche.

I'll try to post back if the name pops up in my brain.

Speaking of San Francisco, the Simmons Building in the East Village kinda has this "Ferry Building" vibe going on. The "THESAMEWAYBETTER/READER" mosaic on Calgary's Riverfront Lane has this arts and crafts feel that will be a draw in the summer. The bigger current activity generators for this area are: the Riverwalk (rollerblading, cycling, walking), the Calgary Central Public Library, Bow Valley College, and Booker's BBQ Grill and Crabshack (vastly underrated IMO, brisket is amazing and have live musice).

I'm really looking forward to the Simmons Building opening up. Last year Simmons Building was already bursting at the seams with people whenever the food trucks came and I think this will get bigger and better every year.

Also, I think higher degrees of cycleability are key to creating vibrancy as well. Where people may walk 1.0 km, they may be willing to bike 4.0 km (if there is sufficient safe environment). There are a lot of what I would call "missing teeth" in the walking network that cyclists overlook.

I think while walking is a great way to connect places on a street by street basis, cycling is important to connect on a neighbourhood by neighbourhood basis because it gives you the option to bypass "sleepy" office buildings, bulldozed lots, etc.

*Double Post*

Big City Broker - his TV show on HGTV? Doesn't appear to be on Netflix.