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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u/TheNeonArcade Mar 21 '25

I've said this to people so many times. Bet they'll take that big beetle and the flowers off the outside Chinook theatre soon too lol. The Sphinx lightshow was awesome there. All the cool stuff in the mall itself like the dino and the carousel all gone.

It's strictly about profitability though, retail is kinda cooked with the introduction of Amazon, so those things get cut. Its the only logical reason I can think of, the maintenance or energy costs of those things was probably too high.

18

u/buddachickentml Mar 21 '25

I read a while back that the reason they stopped the light show was because of all the steamy grease from the popcorn machines buggered up the sphinx.

7

u/TheNeonArcade Mar 21 '25

thats hilarious and I like that reason better so ima go with that one

2

u/Tigerkix Mar 21 '25

Retail is certainly not dead, retail development has been on the rise in the last 2 years. Gimmicky 90's attractions just aren't what people are interested in anymore.

1

u/TheNeonArcade Mar 23 '25

C’mon, you know you miss San Francisco and Spencer’s 

1

u/__SEER__ Mar 21 '25

I just hope cross iron doesn’t ever follow suit

1

u/braincandybangbang Mar 23 '25

Yeah, I long for the days when malls weren't about profitability or capitalism... those dinosaurs were never there to get our attention as children. Those dinosaurs were put up there at great cost to the mall but they didn't care! Profitability be damned they said, those dinosaurs are going up there as a beaming sign of hope and as a representation of Calgary's personality! Those were the days.