GREENWICH RISING AS URBAN VILLAGE FOR 21ST CENTURY
Focus on walkability blends with feel of European city centre, says Richard White.
My golf addiction has seen me drive by Melcor’s new Greenwich community across the Trans-canada Highway from Winsport (a.k.a. Canada Olympic Park) several times a week this summer and last on my way to Redwood Meadows Golf Course. Over the past few months, Greenwich has started to look like a real community with its sapling-lined streets and several new four-storey buildings nearing completion. It definitely has the look of a 21st century urban village rather than a 20th century suburb.
Melcor’s roots go back to 1923, and it is today one of Western Canada’s oldest and most respected land developers. Its most notable developments in Calgary are Arbour Lake and Crowfoot Towne Centre. With Greenwich, Melcor is developing a new community with more density and more mixed uses than those in the 20th century. Greenwich will have no cookie-cutter single-family homes and will have a focus on walkability for many of the residents’ everyday needs.
INSPIRATION
While the Greenwich name was inspired by a visit by one of the development team members to the New York City neighbourhood of the same name, the moniker also pays respect to the existing Greenwood and Greenbriar communities nearby.
The master plan calls for 1,200 new homes, ranging in size from 575-square-foot condos to 1,900-square-foot townhomes. These new homes will be located in 17 buildings, four to six storeys high, with only a few driveways and no garages on the street.
The centre of the community will have about 15 buildings (also four to six storeys) that will be a mix of retail, restaurants, fitness studios, medical, professional services and other office space. At the epicentre of the community will be a 50,000-square-foot (the size of a modern grocery store) year-round Calgary Farmers’ Market with approximately 75 different vendors.
All of these buildings are architecturally linked with brickwork incorporated into their facades, giving the community a timeless sense of place. In addition, with all of the buildings human scale (i.e., under eight storeys), Greenwich will feel a bit like a European city centre.
POP-UP FUN
Across the street from the Calgary Farmers’ Market will be a park/plaza designed to accommodate various special events year-round. This area and the other public spaces have been designed by the Denver office of Design Workshop, one of North America’s leading landscape architecture, planning and urban design firms.
This past summer, Melcor has hosted monthly pop-up markets on the future plaza site in advance of the opening of the farmers’ market (scheduled for fall of 2020). Amazingly, these pop-up markets have been attracting over a thousand people in the middle of what is currently a dirt field surrounded by construction sites. Obviously, there is a pent-up demand for more urban experiences in Calgary’s northwest quadrant.
NEW SUBURBIA
Greenwich is just one of several major developments that will transform the Trans-canada corridor from Sarcee Trail to Stoney Trail over the next 20-plus years. Other projects include the new Trinity Village (currently under construction on the south side of the highway east of Winsport).
As well, Shape Properties has ambitious plans for land southwest of the Stoney Trail and Trans-canada Highway interchange. The new community, still in its early planning stages, will be called West Calgary and encompass 650,000 square feet (about twice the size of North Hill Centre) and have 800 to 1,100 homes. Early images show a series of low-rise buildings surrounding a four-block-long high street with public plaza in the middle.
The fourth project is the old Sunnyside Greenhouses site, which was sold in 2018 to One Properties. This six-hectare (15-acre) site, now called Sunnyside Centre, is actually in the community of Bowness. Plans are being developed to create a 157,000-square-foot retail centre with a grocery store as its anchor.
Unfortunately, these four projects will be isolated from each other by major highways, making it difficult to create pedestrian and cycling links.
Nonetheless, these new mixeduse projects will be joining others like the Bridges (Bridgeland), Currie, East Village, Quarry Park, University District and West District in introducing more urban living options to established communities in the 21st century.
LAST WORD
I, for one, am curious to see how Greenwich and its sister community of Trinity Village will be received by Calgary home buyers over the next few years. They, along with Winsport, will create a much more modern and inviting west entrance/exit to our city over the next few years, which I will enjoy on my way to and from Redwood Meadows.