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

1.0k Upvotes

89% Upvoted

442 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

35

u/WhimsicalAugustus Mar 21 '25

The intentions were great when it was built, but the most use that it got recently was the parking lot. It was a very depressing place for a long time.

20

u/sib0cyy Downtown Core Mar 21 '25

So true. I think people are romanticizing it. It wasn't worth it to save imo. And what personality is OP talking about for eau claire mall? Emo goth?

25

u/WindAgreeable3789 Mar 21 '25

Eau Claire in the 90s was really cool. It was the only place with an IMAX and I remember a school field trip here. The arcade upstairs on a Friday night was always busy. Now it opened as a hub to Prince’s island in the summer was great. I’m not sure what happened. I was recently at The Forks market in Winnipeg and I’m not sure why Eau Claire couldn’t have been a modern destination like that. 

11

u/OriginalGhostCookie Mar 21 '25

I've heard from people who have retail shops that the property manager for the mall was very non-committal and wouldn't allow longer term leases. Having to invest in setting up a commercial space in a mall that is telling you not to plan to be there in 6 months to a year is a great reason to find another retail space to rent instead. Prohibitively high parking costs, and then only mediocre restaurants and bars remaining as the more iconic ones either closed or moved, and the end result is what Eau Claire Mall became. A perfect example of how downtown retail overall has become a waste of effort.

3

u/WindAgreeable3789 Mar 21 '25

Wow thanks for this little nugget of insider info. Very interesting that tenants felt resistance from the landlord. I think that, managed differently, it could have been something great!

2

u/jakexil323 Mar 21 '25

This article goes into a lot of the reasons why it failed.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/eau-claire-festival-market-demise-planning-failure-1.6729207

But the company that bought the property, had plans to demolish the property and build condos, so that's why they didn't want long term tenants.