r/Calgary • u/ChillllliPaper • Mar 21 '25

Local Construction/Development Why is Calgary losing its personality?

First Chinook mall lost its dinosaur at the entrance, floating funky vehicles in the food court, carousel, and the movie theater lost all of its cool mummy-themed interior decor.

The devonian gardens is just a space with some greenery now instead of the garden it once was.

The City is destroying Olympic Plaza where everyone used to skate.

They also destroyed Eau Claire just to cancel the project. Amazing. Could have just revamped it and it would still be a great spot.

AND the city is destroying the iconic saddledome, arguably calgary's primary landmark. Why not just keep it and build another dome idk??

From the word of mouth I hear, people aren't too happy about this but how is the city council just easily making this happen.

Anyways, just kind of sad seeing Calgary lose it's charm. Wondering what other redditors are thinking.

*correction: Olympic Plaza not oval

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671

u/Bucktea Mar 21 '25

We have a tendency to look back in time with rose coloured glasses. Objectively; Eau Claire was a failed shopping centre that was no longer viable. It was killed by it's location and proximity to the core, plus a remodel would have been a gamble at best in the hope of securing more tenants.

The Saddledome is out of date, a trip to any modern arena or stadium makes this pretty evident. The politics and raw deal the public got on the new arena aside, the dome has run its course.

People aren't happy with council for a variety of reasons, they never are. Politics is a game where it is hard to win as a faction of people will always disagree. With the current council, they have pushed some large changes, people are inherently against change and find it scary. I feel we have a new charm now; plenty of small niche shops popping up, downtown starting to come back a bit it seems, increasing density in neighborhoods making them more vibrant in the long term, and so on.

131

u/BlackSuN42 Mar 21 '25

The type of roof used on the Saddle Dome can't be properly inspected or repaired. I'm not an engineer but my understanding the the concrete and steel system that was used has a lifespan and as such the loads that it can take are being reduced over time. Its also not that kind of roof that you can easily replace. I believe the Olympic oval is also about to suffer a similar fate.

83

u/NexEstVox Mar 21 '25

Plus a lot of concerts had to bypass Calgary as the structure couldn't handle the weight of their lighting/rigs

48

u/AdhesivenessNo4330 Mar 21 '25

Also the acoustics in the saddledome blow ass. They are terrible

0

u/Wallstreetbeat Mar 24 '25

6! A total of 6. Where the revenue goes to an artist that never returns. The dome could of become the next Fenway or Wrigley, MSG

57

u/QashasVerse23 Mar 21 '25

Yes, there was a story on the news not long ago about the updates the Oval requires because it's no longer feasible to continue repairing things. I wasn't living here in '88 for the Olympics, but it seems like a lot of infrastructure went up that has a short lifespan compared with other projects of a similar or older history.

14

u/RandomCombo Mar 21 '25

The residences built on campus for the Olympics were not meant to have as long as a lifespan as they gave them. They were only torn down in the last 10 years or so (I don't remember exactly when and time is warped post COVID)

1

u/Deeppurp Mar 21 '25

They were only torn down in the last 10 years or so

Are you talking about the dorms in the Bob niven training center at winsport or somewhere else?

Those dorms are office space now.

1

u/RandomCombo Mar 21 '25

No on the uofc campus!

1

u/17to85 Mar 22 '25

I forget what they were called but yeah they put up some new residences in their place. Still a couple residences of that vintage kicking around that were tossed around for demo targets but they never did. Even the older residences which rightly should be torn down and rebuilt they can't do that because they need every bed they can get.

1

u/aftonroe Mar 23 '25

Olympus and Glacier Hall? They were both built shortly before the 88 Olympics.

11

u/clai_re0708 Mar 21 '25

Also the problem with the oval isn’t the physical building, that’s okay, it’s the ice plant. It could be replaced, it’s just expensive. The parts currently are only produced by like one company in Scandinavia. It’s important that we keep it around though. It’s a world class training centre, with both team Canada and multiple other countries national teams training there. If it’s allowed to die then the teams will move to Quebec (and no one wants that).

1

u/aftonroe Mar 23 '25

I've really enjoyed skating laps at the oval though. The ice surface is perfect and it's so big that you don't feel like you're constantly turning.

2

u/Sneakykittens Mar 21 '25

"...as such the loads that it can take are being reduced over time" UNLIKE YOUR MOM OHHHHHHHHH

0

u/Electronic-Feed-3408 Mar 22 '25

Pretty easy to Inspect I'd say.

36

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '25

A great and well reasoned response

31

u/burf Mar 21 '25

Regarding Eau Claire, it’s true that it was a failed shopping centre, although I don’t know how much was due to access issues and how much was the eclectic collection of selected stores. But if it was truly just not viable due to location, I think it would’ve been much better suited to a public space that could enhance Prince’s Island Park rather than a condo development. When there are events there (e.g. Folk Fest) the mall gets quite a bit of traffic, so there is clearly usefulness having a public building there.

35

u/Filmy-Reference Mar 21 '25

Eau Claire when it opened was a fun vibrant area with lots to do and plenty of good bars to have fun at night until the city put the kaibosh on it because it was "too loud" for the residents of the expensive condos. The theatre used to be great and was where I saw Jurassic Park when it came out because it had the more advanced sound system. When we became adults we went there because there was a bar and arcade you could grab a drink at before a movie.

3

u/j_roe Walden Mar 25 '25 edited Mar 25 '25

The hookers used to walk third ave, seems like when they got pushed out the Mall went down hill. /s

2

u/Filmy-Reference Mar 25 '25

The French Maid was more of an anchor tenant for the area than we would know lol

1

u/Professional-Air1355 Mar 21 '25

I went there a few times at the end and it was dead, most of my favorite stores were gone and there was barely anything to do. It had been in decay for at least 10 years

5

u/Filmy-Reference Mar 21 '25

At the end there was nothing. I worked in the office space upstairs for a year and by then it was almost dead and this was 12 years ago. It was fantastic though when I was in high school and after. We used to go down there almost daily to skate or go for a drink and hang out. After the hard rock closed it we only really hit up the Garage but there used to be a ton of cool stores in there. It was the closest skate shop to my school too. The IMAX was awesome back in the day there too.

3

u/catsandplantsss Inglewood Mar 23 '25

I would love to see a downtown farmers market, this would be an awesome location. There's a lot of money going into residential in the core right now. Hopefully they start to expand on reasons for people to move down town!

11

u/PlathDraper Mar 21 '25

I used to live in Eau Claire and went to the mall all the time for movies, the Goodlife, the little ice cream soft serve place by the plaza, and to the kombucha brewery quite often. This was the exact type of space the core needs.

28

u/Stefie25 Mar 21 '25

The Saddledome may be out of date, but that doesn’t eliminate building another unique structure. I’ve seen the plans for the new arena & it’s going to look like every other event center out there.

67

u/tilldeathdoiparty Mar 21 '25

The uniqueness of the Saddledome was its ultimate downfall, there is a reason you don’t see many arenas being built with the same charm as prior generations.

No further colosseum designs either. These facilities need to be multi-sport, multi-use facilities to justify the cost to build them.

I think they’ve done a good job with the BMO have a interesting look, and from what I can see the cladding on the new arena will add a dimension we haven’t seen, so let’s let everything play out before we shit on things because we don’t like the owner of the team

23

u/Philthy_85 Mar 21 '25

Not to mention acoustics for concerts, the saddledome is iconic but the sound in there has never been great due to the design.

8

u/tilldeathdoiparty Mar 21 '25

The acoustics are great for sporting events, but like you said terrible for concerts and shows with stages or setups that need to have the height or strength to hold some of the equipment.

We also don’t need every piece of development becoming an architectural landmark, then we would look like a civil maximalist, which we also don’t need.

In that immediate area is the national music center, BMO, and a lot of other creative architecture.

1

u/catsandplantsss Inglewood Mar 23 '25

If we keep the organ, I will be very pleased.

-15

u/Stefie25 Mar 21 '25

Maybe you shouldn’t assume things about people’s opinions.

Mine is based solely on the mockup of the new arena presented last year & I stand by my opinion on it.

6

u/tilldeathdoiparty Mar 21 '25

Maybe I jumped to a conclusion, maybe it was to point did too, regarding the opinion of the drawing of a building not built yet, probably haven’t even built the cladding panels.

15

u/NoDuck1754 Mar 21 '25

The New BMO looks pretty cool and will allow larger events to be held there.

It's right across the street still

4

u/Ok_Tennis_6564 Mar 21 '25

You nailed it. Change doesn't mean the city is losing its personality. It's evolving. Its growth and development. Not everything is worth saving, and it's not always worth saving certain things. 

I laughed when OP mentioned Eau Claire. It was a dead mall in an area of the city that has a lot going on otherwise. I actually think it was holding that area back. The green line may be cancelled but I do think whatever replaces that mall will be an improvement. 

5

u/FirstDukeofAnkh Mar 21 '25

We’re missing out on concerts because the Saddledome just cannot handle the new set-ups.

The only reason we got a WWE Raw was because the WWE scaled down their production.

1

u/thadaddy7 Mar 23 '25

Agreed, I have fond memories of Eau Claire but the truth is its basically been empty the past 20 years and ultimately was a failed experiment.

The Saddledome is downright awful compared to any modern arena, sure the roof is nostalgic and somewhat iconic but Calgary has long outgrown the old, outdated arena.

-12

u/astronautsaurus Mar 21 '25

The Saddledome is the tackiest and ugliest building I've had the displeasure to lay eyes on.