GATEWAY TO A COMMUNITY
Couple downsizing from 1,300-square-foot house to enjoy more walking, less yard work
Dave and Kirsten Phillips love what they can reach on foot from their longtime Cougar Ridge home.
For Kirsten, picking up a coffee at the nearby Starbucks and dining at Mercato are among her personal favourites.
“All of the amenities are up in the West Springs area,” Dave says.
But based on their current needs, it’s time for something lower maintenance than the 1,300-squarefoot bungalow with a full basement and a yard that they’ve owned in the southwest Calgary community for the past 17 years.
“I’ve been retired for 18 years now, so it’s about time I quit working so hard on the yard,” says Dave, who worked for CP Rail.
They’re heading to a development that will continue to provide them with proximity to the established shops, services and places to eat that they already enjoy, while putting them on the doorstep of a uniquely walkable, forward-thinking community that expands those opportunities substantially.
The couple bought a condo in the opening residential phase of West District by Truman. The innovative new community will boast more than 250,000 square feet of retail space and more than 820,000 square feet of office space.
When complete, an estimated 3,500 people will be employed in the community.
Its main street is called Broadcast Avenue, which is a hat tip to Calgary’s Broadcast Hill.
“We walk for most of our groceries and everything up in that area (right now),” says Kirsten. “Now this makes it closer, and even better.”
A 34-hectare (84-acre) masterplanned infill community, West District, planned to build out to about 3,400 homes, is taking shape on land within the existing West Springs area, accessed off Old Coach Banff Road, west of 85th Street S.W.
The community’s crown jewel is a $15 million central park — an amenity the developer has dubbed the Urban Living Room — planned around a central lake and water features that provide stormwater storage for West District.
“That was a big motivator, giving us so many options to walk just within your own community,” says Dave.
Kirsten agrees, adding “their vision sounds so good.”
The couple, who will be accompanied by their standard poodle, are among the first people to buy a home at West District, purchasing an apartment-style condo at Gateway, the community’s first residential development, which is now under construction. It’s comprised of condos, Skytowns and brownstones.
There are 216 units in total between the first two buildings currently under construction at Gateway. It’s expected to be complete by the end of 2019, with 94 homes on tap for the east building and 122 located on the west side.
The development is at the point of construction where custom options can be added to every suite.
Floor plans range in size from 550 to 2,200 square feet, and balconies measure between 80 and 880 square feet.
They come in more than 36 floor-plan types, including onebedroom, two-bedroom, threebedroom and four-bedroom orientations.
The Phillips’ condo is a corner unit that’s 1,100 square feet with a 656-square-foot balcony.
While the names of multi-family developments can be cloaked in hidden meaning, the handle behind Battistella Developments’ new tower is as revealing as it sounds.
The veteran developer today unveils a show suite and launches pre-construction sales for Nude, a 177-unit, 18-storey development in the city’s west Beltline District.
Battistella’s most recent work includes Ink in East Village, along with Kensington developments Lido and Pixel. It also has a history in the Beltline with a 19-storey structure dubbed Chocolate.
“After we reviewed all the details of the building, so the strippedback architecture, the interior style of exposed ductwork and concrete floors ... as we worked our way through all of those decisions, we decided Nude was the right name to capture that bigger life, and that idea of owning a home that just doesn’t own you, in every way, shape and form,” says Christopher Pollen, Battistella’s director of sales and marketing.
With these condos, Battistella carries over an idea, rare to the market, that was well received at Ink: options for smaller-thanaverage floor plans.
While Ink’s smallest was 368 square feet, Nude’s ranges from 400 to 800 square feet. The complete floor-plan lineup available includes studio, one-bedroom, one-bedroom-plus-den and twobedroom orientations. Prices start in the $190,000s. The smaller floor plans are a studio configuration that Pollen says “feel really large.”
“In our show suite, we have a seven-foot sectional couch in a 400-square-foot studio,” he says.
“You can get good-sized furniture if you think about using space differently, which we have.”
The condos will boast floorto-ceiling windows for generous doses of natural light.
And by exposing the ductwork, as the developer did with Ink, the ceiling height climbs to 9.5 feet, resulting in a higher-volume feeling, says Pollen.
“We thought through those details,” he adds. “That once again comes back to that concept of minimalism. Not minimalism being micro-living, but minimalism being, let’s really think about making really good decisions that are intentional, so that everything adds value to the building and to homeowners’ lives.”
The exterior elevation is in step with that theme, too.
“I think people will be struck by the simplicity of the architecture,” says Pollen.
“It’s a simple architectural form, but it’s highly articulated.
“From a tower standpoint, there are two architectural forms that meld together,” he adds.
“There’s industrial and very modern playing a juxtaposition against each other to create a lot of visual interest.”
For Battistella, which has a long track record of developing in neighbourhoods close to Calgary ’s core, the site on which Nude will be built was a fit.
“We believe in the inner-city of Calgary,” Pollen says, calling the Beltline a “fantastic neighbourhood.”
In the recent civic census, the Beltline had the strongest yearover-year population growth with 1,668 new residents, for a total head count of 24,887.
“There are so many good things going on,” says Pollen. “We’ve loved the Beltline forever.”
From Nude’s site specifically, Pollen points to its easy access to vibrant 14th Street and 17th Avenue S.W., and quick walk to an LRT station. “Everything you need for life’s necessities is right at your fingertips,” Pollen says.
The presentation centre, located at 1319 14th Ave. S.W., will be open 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. on weekends.