CITY CENTRE SHOWDOWN
First of two-part exploration
Ever since the Calgary Herald published my column “Does Calgary Have The World’s Most Walkable City Centre?” in March, I have been criticized by some urbanists for being a “Calgary cheerleader” who sees my city with rose-coloured glasses.
Brent Toderian, a former City of Calgary planner for our city centre, then director of planning for Vancouver and now an international planning consultant, even asked his 49,000 Twitter followers, “What in their opinion is the most walkable city centre in the world?” As one would expect, cities like Paris, Barcelona and Melbourne topped the list, and Calgary wasn’t included. No surprise Calgary flies under the radar for national and international urbanists.
CALGARY’S CITY CENTRE IS VERY COOL
Over the past few months I have posted a number of blogs on my everydaytourist.ca website documenting why Calgary’s major city centre communities, i.e. Beltline, Bridgeland, downtown, Inglewood, Kensington and Mission, are all very cool places to live, play and visit.
In each blog, I documented how over the past decade or two, our city centre, with the addition of dozens of new condo complexes and thousands of new infill homes, improved public spaces, new festivals, new shops, restaurants, cafés and pubs, has evolved to be on par with or better than other North American cities. These blogs were also dismissed by some national and international urbanists as simply “cheerleading.”
Here is why I think “Calgary’s City Centre is one of the best in North America” and perhaps the BEST for any city with a population under two million people. The rationale is not based on stats and figures, but on decades of personal observation of various key elements of urban vitality in dozens of cities in North America and Europe.
SHOPPING
Very few city centres in North America under two million people still have major department stores and shopping centres. Calgary boasts three department stores — Hudson’s Bay, Holt Renfrew and Simons and the Core, Bankers Hall and Scotia Centre combine to create one of the largest indoor shopping malls of any city centre in North America.
Our city centre is also blessed with six major pedestrian streets (main streets) — Stephen Avenue, 4th Street S.W., 10th Street N.W., Kensington Road, 9th Avenue S.E. and 17th Avenue S.W., as well as four secondary ones — First Street S.W., 11th Street S.W., 11th Avenue S.W. (Design District) and 1st Avenue N.E. (Bridgeland). Most city centres are lucky to have two or three.
It also has four major grocery stores — Safeway (Kensington, Connaught and Mission), as well as Midtown Co-op. In addition, Sunterra (Victoria Park), Community Natural Foods (Beltline), Bite (Inglewood), Sunnyside Organic Market and Bridgeland Market, Luke’s Drug Mart and Blush Lane Organic Market ( both in Bridgeland) serve as niche grocers. And, while Calgary doesn’t have a year-round central market, we do have weekly summer markets in Hillhurst and Bridgeland.
COFFEE CULTURE
Calgary has had a strong independent coffee culture long before Starbucks was even thought of. Kensington has been home to two independent coffee houses — Higher Ground and the Roasterie since the 1980s. Cafe Beano has been a hipster hangout since before the term hipster was popularized in the 21st century. Mission’s Purple Perk has also been around for decades.
Recently, a plethora of Calgarybased coffee houses have invaded the city centre — Alforno, Analog, Gravity, Monogram, Phil & Sebastian, Rosso and Vendome to name a few.
RESTAURANTS
Like most North American cities, the restaurant scene has exploded in Calgary’s city centre over the past 20-odd years. enRoute Magazine’s list of top new Canadian restaurants list has routinely included one or more Calgary city centre restaurants including Bar Von Der Fels (2017), while Pigeon Hole was ranked its Best New Restaurant in Canada (2015).
John Gilchrist, Calgary Herald food and restaurant writer and author of My Favourite Restaurants Calgary and Banff, had 49 favourite restaurants in downtown alone and over 150 in the city centre in his last book. He points out Calgary’s city centre offers both upscale dining — Teatro, Blink and Charcut — as well as many ethnic dining spots — Falafel King, Pure and Jonas. Gilchrist also notes Calgary’s Chinatown is small, but has some great dim sum spots, and Stephen Avenue has an abundance of pubs and restaurant patios.
ART & ARCHITECTURE
Over the past two decades, Calgary has upped its game when it comes to urban design. Calgary’s city centre boasts a major office tower by Norman Foster (the Bow), a mixed office/residential tower by Bjarke Ingles (Telus Sky), a bridge by Santiago Calatrava that is unlike any other he has designed (Peace Bridge) and an iconic new Central Library by Snohetta. There is also Pickard Chilton’s two tower Eighth Avenue Place and London’s Arney Fender Katsalidis Brookfield Place office tower, both featuring cathedral-like public lobbies.
Calgary also has an early SOM architects residential tower (Eau Claire 500 built in 1979) and a new SOM office tower (707 Fifth Street, built in 2017). SOM, one of the largest and most influential architecture, interior design, engineering and urban planning firms in the world, designed the iconic Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the tallest building in the world.
When it comes to public art, Calgary boasts 100-plus artworks in its city centre, including Wonderland by internationally acclaimed artist Jaume Plensa. Some of Calgary’s best public art is by local artists like Ron Moppett’s huge mosaic THESAME-WAYBETTER/READER made up of 956,321 tiny glass tiles, and Joe Fafard’s stampeding horses titled “Do Re Me Fa Sol La Si Do.”
Calgary’s city centre is also home to many historical buildings including dozens of early 20th Century sandstone buildings. Stephen Avenue is a designated National Historic Site with its collection of early 20th century buildings. Atlantic Avenue — a.k.a. 9th Avenue S.E. and Calgary’s original main street — also has an important collection of early 20th century brick buildings. Other important historical sites include the Lougheed House with the Beaulieu Garden, Reader Rock Gardens and Senator Burns Rock Gardens.
When it comes to the arts, Arts Commons is one of the larger performing arts centres in North America (3,200 seats in five performance spaces), Glenbow is one of Canada’s largest museums and Lunchbox Theatre is longest running noon-hour theatre in North America. There is also Theatre Junction Grand and Decidedly Jazz dance studio offering diverse programming, while two art house cinemas — the Globe and Plaza — offer alternative and main stream films. Yes, I know we don’t have a major contemporary art gallery — you can’t have everything!
Next week: Part Two of Richard White’s exploration of how Calgary’s city centre stacks up against other cities’ centres in North America looks at public spaces, fitness, festivals and fun, among other key ingredients.