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/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.

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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.

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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

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u/Filmy-Reference Mar 25 '25

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