New community plans to honour Flames owner
Hopewell project to be named Hotchkiss after noted Calgary philanthropist
Anew 85-hectare community in southeast Calgary will honour an iconic city business leader and philanthropist.
As a way to celebrate the contributions of the late Harley Hotchkiss and his family, Hopewell Residential Communities is naming its next community “Hotchkiss.”
Harley, 83, passed away following a battle with cancer last June.
He was an owner of the Calgary Flames and played a role in bringing the NHL franchise to the city from Atlanta in 1980.
He was also known for his generosity due to sizable donations to charities, including the Hotchkiss Brain Institute.
The planned community of Hotchkiss will be located directly east of Copperfield adjacent to Ralph Klein Park.
Upon build-out, the development will be home to about 3,700 residents in 1,500 homes.
The groundbreaking for Hotchkiss is expected to start in 2014.
Creating a community legacy to “further honour Harley and the Hotchkiss family’s spirit” was a logical choice, says Hopewell Residential Communities president Lesley Conway.
“They stand for family values and community betterment,” she says.
The Hotchkiss family “has been an institution in this city,” says Conway.
When the family was asked for permission to use their name for Hopewell Residential’s next development, they initially hesitated, says Harley’s son, Jeff.
“He affected a lot of people, but he didn’t seek the limelight for it,” says Jeff of his dad.
But Harley’s five children and widow, Rebecca, approved the idea.
“We thought that it was just fantastic,” says Jeff, who is president of both Haven Developments — a company that represents the Hotchkiss family — and Augusta Developments.
Harley’s interest in communities and his business relationship with Hopewell helped the decision, says Jeff.
That relationship started in 1998, when the Hotchkiss and the Ollerenshaw families and Hopewell Residential became equity partners in the southeast Calgary community of Copperfield.
The Ollerenshaws once owned the land that became Copperfield.
The three parties are working in the same capacity on Hotchkiss. Jeff recalls how he and his dad would drive through Copperfield as it took shape, watching it go from bare land to a community for more than 3,000 people.
“He was so fascinated by it — and so am I,” says Jeff.
“We would drive around and he’d say: ‘I can’t believe it, there are 32 houses up now.’”
People have “seen real growth in communities in southeast Calgary,” says Conway, adding homebuyers are attracted to things such as the area’s transportation network — and its close to rec- reational centres and the South Health Campus.
“It’s a really desirable area for Calgarians to live in.”
Conway says Hotchkiss, like Hopewell’s other communities, will place an emphasis on giving families a place to “live and play.”
Hotchkiss will include a variety of housing types, says Conway, adding it will have single- and multi-family housing — including duplexes, attached homes and four-storey buildings.
Housing options will also come in an assortment of price ranges.
That’s what creates a healthy community at the end of the day — when you’ve got people of different ages and socio-economic groups living in one community together.
LESLEY CONWAY, HOPEWELL RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITIES
“That’s what creates a healthy community at the end of the day — when you’ve got people of different ages and socio-economic groups living in one community together,” she says.
The housing will be based around a central amenity, a characteristic similar to Mahogany, another Hopewell Residential community, where its amenity is a lake and beach building.
Mahogany’s move-up show home parade is the winner of the Calgary Region Sales and Marketing award for show home parade of the year.
The central amenity has not been determined for Hotchkiss, as the community is still early in the planning process. Also like Mahogany, homes in Hotchkiss will show a commitment to quality infrastructure, says Conway.