Quote:
Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed
The Flames saw that the city had a plan for the future for the west village. Then they plunked there building down on the prime land of the area, and assumed that the city would be all supportive of the idea, and would have no issues with how the area works.
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I think that is a really important point that is often overlooked; no one seems to consider the opportunity cost associated with that real estate. The problems with the West Village are actually easier to deal with than in the East Village, because all it takes is money (albeit lots of money). Your resulting land is as prime as it gets considering proximity to downtown, the river, and quality of surrounding communities. It's always going to feel like a safer, more desirable place to live than the East Village. I think the arena district closer to East Village would do a lot to help the vibrancy of that area; something I think would be unnecessary for future West Village development.
I realize this is fantasy at this point, but I think the Remington Lot area (between Olympic Way-Calgary Transit Building and 12 ave to CN rail tracks) would be far more suitable for the building(s). My understanding is that Stampede does not have any lease for this area, but they do have an arrangement to use it for parking during 10 day event.
It would be tougher to fit that the football stadium into that space unless you can go south of 12 ave (or CTS building) which is technically Stampede land. Since Stampede's expansion plans have fallen flat (and losing the main arena in town will certainly not help in the future), I think the city could help broker a deal to make an extra block of land into Stampede territory available (currently used as a parking lot and small admin building for IT staff), which I think the Stampede might welcome anyways as they would get a chance to maintain some parking revenues.
I would use the slice of land between 9 ave and train tracks for commercial with significant underground parking, and tunnel/overhead pedestrian access across the tracks to the new building area. This would help remove the barrier feeling from the train tracks right now at the south end of East Village.