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east village master plan EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The newest oldest coolest warmest neighbourhood in town East Village is a big piece of downtown Calgary – 120 acres sandwiched east and west between 3rd Street SE (back of city hall, Bow Valley College and the YWCA) and the Fort Calgary lands all the way up to the Elbow River. The southern border of East Village is 9th Avenue SE, and its northern edge is the Bow River. East Village sits on the eastern edge of downtown Calgary, but not so long ago, East Village was downtown in its entirety. Calgary was founded here in 1875; East Village streets were home to blacksmiths and newspapers and hotels and copshops and big shots and workers and dreamers. Today, East Village is home to very few buildings but lots of very big ideas about how it can be a key part of downtown once more. The most livable urban areas in the world inspired our master planners – Broad- way Malyan – to transform East Village into an urban village: a place of consid- table of contents erable density with many different kinds of residences – apartments, condos and townhomes – but no single family homes on large lots. It will have a “mixed use” character, meaning that a single building can house both residences and A VISION FOR EAST VILLAGE businesses, which is key to creating life on the street day and night. 4-9 East Village will be designed first for people and will also accommodate cars. BACKGROUND Public transit is already in place. Streets are laid out so that our neighbours and 10-11 residents will be able to walk from one place to another safely and easily. MASTER PLAN APPROACH And our urban village will offer spectacular public meeting areas which will 12-13 Inspire our youth and honour arts and culture. SITE ANALYSIS With the urban village principle as a guide, Broadway Malyan created our mas- 14-15 ter plan. This master plan provides a vision for how East Village will become an urban village, and how it will look in 2020. TARGET MARKET STUDIES 16-17 Frankly, you’re not going to believe your eyes. And when East Village gets built, you’re not going to believe your nose, ears or taste buds, either. The urban vil- URBAN DESIGN PRINCIPLES lage that East Village will become is another kind of Calgary – it looks different 18-21 and it feels different. You’ll walk around and it’ll look good, smell great and taste delicious because there’ll be intriguing places to eat, fabulous window shopping STRATEGIC LAYERS OF THE MASTER PLAN to do, new places to work and live, interesting people to watch and friends to 22-23 visit. It’ll be a living and breathing place. URBAN DESIGN GUIDELINES Welcome to East Village – the newest, oldest, coolest, warmest 24-25 neighbourhood in town. The place where Calgary comes together at last. ILLUSTRATIVE MASTER PLAN 26-27 KEY CORRIDORS Chris Ollenberger 28-29 President & CEO Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (cmlc) THE RIFF 30-31 2 EAST VILLAGE MASTER PLAN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY EAST VILLAGE MASTER PLAN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3 East Village’s Gateway area will create a new sense of arrival to downtown Calgary. a vision for east village The idea of regenerating East Village as an Urban Village was the fruit of a thoughtful visioning process, involving planners and the public, that began in earnest prior to 2003. It was the first success- ful step forward for the area since the development of the flyovers and LRT in the 1970s. For decades, East Village has been shunned by the city centre and known for marginal uses that have tainted public perceptions of the area – despite the fact that the site is located on a desirable stretch of riverfront with strategic road and LRT connections, is adjacent to business, civic and cultural centres, and overlooks one of the city’s largest urban open spaces. As the idea of an Urban Village took hold, CMLC began to articulate the key characteristics of the place, both the facts – the built envi- ronment, the attributes of its landscape – and the feelings, the over- arching way “EV” will be perceived. Together, these differentiating characteristics, both real and perceived, make up the East Village vision and its ‘sense of place’. They tell us what EV will be like long before the foundations are poured on the first new building. And as the project progresses, developers, the media and the public can refer back to the vision to understand what makes East Village, East Village. 4 EAST VILLAGE MASTER PLAN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY EAST VILLAGE MASTER PLAN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 5 The RiverWalk will provide engaging new public spaces along the Bow River and features a proposed boutique hotel on the plaza. An artist’s conceptual rendering of East Village from above 9th Avenue looking north towards the Bow River. the facts The facts are these: East Village sits on the edge of the city centre and at a junction of politi- East Village will grow into its surroundings, informing the redevelopment of the adjoining Rail cal, educational and business activity. It forms a transition between the high rise towers of the Town site south of 9th Avenue SE. The spirit of East Village will also extend outwards along the existing business core, the mixed-use Beltline district and the natural environment of the river- river edge to St. Patrick’s Island, renewing the urban parkland as part of this benchmark revital- front, St. Patricks Island and the parkland of Fort Calgary. East Village seeks to bind together ization plan. the city core, its nature and people, by means of a new community with human scale develop- ment and a vibrant creative culture - an urban habitat that borrows from the best examples of East Village will be a model for future development, providing an irresistible opportunity international city-building. to live, work and play in a single location, and offering a long-awaited setting for cultural exuberance, entertainment, activity and adventure. In the East Village vision, it is a place centred on innovation, exemplified by its architecture and streetscape quality. It captures the imagination of creative professionals and attracts small specialist organizations and businesses. It is also a magnet for visitors, who are attracted by its colorful, vibrant small-scale attractions and relaxed atmosphere. 6 EAST VILLAGE MASTER PLAN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY EAST VILLAGE MASTER PLAN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 7 The EVE (East the feeling Village Experience) Block is designed to offer a cinema, fitness centre and The physical characteristics of a renewed East Village paint a vivid picture of a neighbourhood a variety of retail shops virtually reborn. But our attachment to places are made emotionally rather than logically, and around a unique glass- part of the visioning process was held to articulate how Calgarians would connect to the neigh- covered plaza. bourhood on an emotional level. The intangible elements that make up the ‘feel’ of East Village – the other, equally important half of an understanding of its sense of place – were first articu- lated in 2008 and presented in the premier issue of EVE, East Village Experience magazine. They appear here in an abridged form. EAST VILLAGE HAS AN ‘OFF THE GRID’ ENERGY: HUMAN. ALTERNATIVE. CREATIVE. It will take every kind of energy – and every ounce of ingenuity – to raise up East Village. The effort to reboot this city neighbourhood will leave no rock unturned and no idea unconsidered, making East Village a bold, unprecedented experiment in the future of city life, an urban labo- ratory not only for Calgary and Alberta, but also for Canada. In the capital city of conventional resources, where fossil fuels are king, East Village will be a model of sustainability, embracing innovation, contemporary values, culture and arts. What fuels us is possibility; what keeps us going is a ‘what if’, firing on all cylinders, gushing out of the ground. You heard it here first: East Village is the next boom. EAST VILLAGE IS ConflUENCE AND ConnECTION: RIVERS MEET HERE. MINDS MEET HERE. CAlgARY MEETS HERE. The urban village that is East Village is Calgary for all. It is the ‘there there’ of the city, taking the sprawl out and drawing all kinds of people in toward the junction of the Bow and Elbow East Village’s rivers. With an unrivaled range of amenities within comfortable walking distance, East Village is Parkside area will truly urban, a must-be-experienced destination for locals and visitors alike. On land considered offer a mix of multi- choice for 3,000 years, East Village is an intersection where possibilities run deep: the flow- family housing ing together of ambition and curiosity, art, creative intellect and counter-culture opinion will bordering the Fort combine to define the future of the city, while the stories of the past will be recounted afresh. Calgary parkland. In events and programming, housing and shopping experiences, East Village will make far-flung Calgarians neighbours, providing the street corners where they bump into one another and the places where they will share common interests. As they live, work and play here, get to know one another and deepen ties, the attachment to East Village evolves, becoming emotional and irresistible. All rivers lead here. To the magnetic east. EAST VILLAGE IS A LIVING DownTown WATERFRONT: LIVE NEAR IT. DREAM BY IT. FloAT ON IT. The river touches Calgary in many places, but it is in East Village that the riverfront will truly touch Calgarians, the neighbourhood that helps them realize that they live in a true riverfront city. Day and night, winter and summer, the Bow riverfront – its waters forever clear and invit- ing – is a resident of East Village, eager to get acquainted: Villagers will walk and bike it on their way to and from work, make reservations at the restaurants on its banks – the better to enjoy wide decks near its murmuring waters – and raft down it on weekends.

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