It has been hard for me to watch Stephen Avenue Walk decline over the past 10+ years, having been heavily involved in its development as the Executive Director of the Calgary Downtown Association from 1995 to 2005.

Stephen Avenue is a very popular place at noon hour during the week, especially in the summer, when office workers want to get outside and enjoy the sun and fresh air. (Photo credit: Jeff Trost)

Future of Stephen Avenue

It was with great anticipation I logged onto Gehl Studio and Stantec’s online presentation on “Future of Stephen Avenue: Vision and Road Map” last Fall. After listening to it and reviewing the document, I have to say I was disappointed. There was nothing that wasn’t already known and they didn’t present any really big new ideas.

However, maybe hearing old ideas from someone who is internationally famous will motivate the city, building owners and business owners to make the changes needed to create a fun, vibrant street for people of all ages.

Since Gehl’s presentation I have been mulling over what needs to happen to make Stephen Avenue thrive again. There is much optimism for Stephen Avenue Walk these days with several new private and public developments currently under construction or in the conceptual stages.

However, I wonder if Calgary can afford and support the redevelopment of Stephen Avenue as a modern cultural, retail, restaurant and entertainment district, as well as 17th Avenue SW and the new Rivers District SHED (Sports, Hospitality Entertainment District) Rivers District at Stampede Park.

Conceptual image of what the new Rivers Entertainment and Cultural District at Stampede Park will hopefully look like with an expanded BMO Event Centre, new arena, 4th Street pedestrian link to East Village, new LRT station and connection to 17th Av… — Conceptual image of what the new Rivers Entertainment and Cultural District at Stampede Park will hopefully look like with an expanded BMO Event Centre, new arena, 4th Street pedestrian link to East Village, new LRT station and connection to 17th Avenue. Can Stephen Avenue Walk compete with this? Can Calgary support two entertainment cultural districts?

Need An Outsider’s Perspective

In August 2019, the City of Calgary announced it had engaged Gehl Studio as the consultants to rethink how Stephen Avenue Walk could be modernized to become the vibrant 21st century “people place.” Jan Gehl, is a Danish architect who has become an international urban planning guru, focuses on re-orienting the design of city centers for pedestrians and cyclists, rather than cars.

His book “Public Spaces, Public Life” tells how incremental improvements have transformed Copenhagen from a car-centric to a pedestrian-oriented city over the past 40 years. He has worked in major cities around the world - from London to Melbourne and from New York City to Auckland. Gehl is the Wayne Gretzky of modern city center urban design.

Gehl Studio is now leading the Stephen Avenue Transformation team that includes Stantec’s Calgary office, as well as numerous City of Calgary planners and various stakeholders like the Calgary Downtown Association. Their mandate is to not only to look at the historic Stephen Avenue pedestrian mall, but 8th Ave from City Hall to Mewata Armoury.

Gehl’s ideas for improving Stephen Avenue pedestrian friendliness were:

improve connectivity,
remove black walls,
develop surface parking lots into residential,
engaging shop owners and landlords,
diversifying the things to see and do
creation of character areas

While these are all good ideas, none are new.

Can we really wait until the end of the ‘20s to see the transformation of Stephen Avenue? From “Future of Stephen Avenue: Vision and Road Map”

Character Areas / Pedestrians Only

Gehl’s idea to divide Stephen Avenue (from Mcleod Trail to 11th Avenue S.W.) into three character areas was perhaps the most interesting idea. They propose the cultural district at the east end, be branded “The Commons,” the commerce district in the middle with all of the office highrises and The Core shopping centre be branded “The Core,” and area west of 8th Street SW where there are several existing residential towers, be branded “The Village.”

Stantec recommended structural changes to Stephen Avenue Walk that would create a year-round pedestrian mall (no vehicle traffic except for local deliveries and emergency vehicle) from Mcleod Trail to 4th St SW and a multi-modal street from 4th St SW to 11th Street i.e. pedestrians, cyclists, scooter and local vehicle traffic.

It will be interesting to see how a pedestrian only mall works in the winter. Stephen Avenue struggled as a pedestrian mall in the ‘80s, which is why a single lane of car traffic was introduced in the early ‘90s.

However, times have changed and perhaps it might work today, but it will need a lot of programming and cooperation from landlords and tenants.

Programming Fun

Perhaps the most innovative and ambitious part of the presentation came at the very end. It was the announcement that the Calgary Downtown Association (CDA) and Makespace are launching a program to activate one million square feet of retail and amenity space in the downtown through a curated mix of pop-up, special events and entrepreneurial development programming. Unfortunately COVID lockdowns and shutdowns will make difficult.

Kensington Village on the northwest edge of downtown has its own pedestrian streets with popular boutiques, patios, restaurants, cafes, bookstores and art house cinema - no need to go downtown!

Jennifer Rempel the CDA’s General Manager has lots of experience in event management, she was responsible for growing 4th Streets Lilac Festival, into Calgary’s largest street festival.

Indeed, to attract people downtown will require offering a multitude of unique things to see and do - things Calgarians can’t find in the suburb.

Also it will have to be different from what those living in the City Centre can find along their neighbourhood main streets.

It will be interesting to see what they come up with and if they can find sustainable funding. Not only does programing not come cheap, it creates a special event mentality, meaning people only visit when there is an event happening.

This is exactly what happens with events like Glow and the new Chinook Blast, thousands of people come downtown and stroll Stephen Avenue, then go home and wait for the next event to happen.

Not only this kind of programming expensive, but it doesn’t create everyday street vitality. They don’t really experience the street or downtown, as they don’t go into the shops which are closed or restaurants which are too upscale and not family friendly for most of the event visitors.

Great urban streets are ones locals and tourists visit because there are lots of inherently interesting things to see and do. Great urban streets are also where thousands of people actually live on the street or nearby, not one’s dominated by office towers. Office districts, like Wall Street in New York and Bay Street in Toronto are also not great public places.

Ultimately one of the keys to making Stephen Avenue Walk a vibrant streetscape from Olympic Plaza to Mewata Armoury will be how it can be physically changed to make it a more attractive place for everyone - pedestrians, disabled, cyclists, scooters and vehicles to all co-exist. How it can become a desirable place to meet and linger.

The biggest change in urban life in Calgary over the past 10 years has been the resurgence of cycling. To make Stephen Avenue Walk vibrant it will have to become the preferred way for cyclists to travel through the centre of downtown, without making it less attractive to pedestrians and others.

If half of Stephen Avenue is going to be a vibrant pedestrian mall year-round, with lots of programming it will mean removing some of the clutter along the sidewalks so you don’t have to dance around patios, vendors, trees, sandwich boards, bike racks and garbage cans and cyclists.

It will also mean creating open spaces for fire pits, warming huts, patios and programming at certain times of the day and year. In the winter, Stephen Avenue Walk gets very little sunlight as it is in the shadow of buildings from Macleod Trail to 8th St SW.

Link: New ideas tested to create urban vitality in Calgary neighbourhoods

New Catalytic Developments

The biggest key to Stephen Avenue’s future is the success of the seven catalytic developments currently underway.

If they fail, it will be decades before any developer will be interested in investing in Stephen Avenue projects.

The Village Developments:

West Village Towers included much need pedestrian spaces in “The Village” at the west end of 8th Avenue at 10th St. SW.

West Village Towers is a three tower residential development that will add 575 new homes and with 90,000 square feet of commercial development when completed. Currently the first two towers are under construction.

This project has the potential to become the anchor needed on the west end of Stephen Avenue. This is an investment of $350 million by Cidex Group of Companies.

The City of Calgary has invested $25M as phase one of the transformation of the old Calgary Science Centre Planetarium into Contemporary Calgary - a public art gallery. Designs for phase two, includes a major $100+ million expansion.

The completion in 2021 of the Century Gardens park redevelopment at 8th Street (cost $9.7 million) is critical to the transformation of the west end of Stephen Avenue Walk as an urban village with mix of public spaces, commercial development, University of Calgary downtown campus, LRT stations and residential development.

The Core Developments:

Stephen Avenue Place will transform what was a banking pavilion into a mix of entertainment uses at 2nd Avenue SW which is centre ice for Stephen Avenue.

Stephen Avenue Place, formerly Scotia Tower at the corner of 2nd Street is in the final stages of renovations that will convert the old bank space at ground level into a modern restaurant, entertainment space.

Other renovation in the building are designed to make the building more attractive to tech companies as part of Calgary’s plan to diversify the downtown office economy.

This is a private investment of $30M by Slate Canadian Real Estate Opportunity Fund.

Barron Building is current being renovated from a former office and movie house to a residential building. Getting more people living right on Stephen Avenue is critical to creating evening and weekend traffic. Stephen Avenue has to become their front and back yard - their urban playground. This is private sector investment of $100 million by Strategic Group.

The Commons Developments:

Like Stephen Avenue, Art Commons is past its due date and is in need of a major renovation and expansion. Plans for an ambitious Art Commons Transformation ($444 million) are moving forward with the Oct 14th 2020 announcement that CMLC is proceeding with the procurement of consultants to design the transformation over the next two years. Art Commons has to become an active space throughout the day and year-round, not just in the evenings from September to May.

The Glenbow Museum, built in 1976, has plans for a $115M makeover that will create a new façade, opening up the concrete box to Stephen Avenue and redesigning the exhibition areas to allow for more of its massive collection to be on display. It along with Art Commons have to become the anchors for a vibrant Olympic Plaza Cultural District.

Conceptual image of the new, more transparent and more welcoming entrance to The Glenbow from Stephen Avenue. (Image credit: The Glenbow).

Facing Reality

If Stephen Avenue Walk is going to thrive in the future and be Calgary’s iconic street, it will require both incremental and catalytic changes. Gehl Studio and Stantec are working on a plan to allow for programing and physical changes that while not new, are much needed. The City, The Glenbow and Arts Commons and developers are working on adding more “live, work and play” appeal to The Walk.

Together these initiatives must radically reshape the public’s perception of The Walk as a people place. They must enable The Walk to successfully compete with 17th Avenue, the new Stampede Park and other city centre main streets as an exciting pedestrian experience for Calgarians of all ages and backgrounds.

This will be difficult, and of course none of this will matter if we don’t defeat COVID.

If you like this blog, you might be these 2019 blogs that examine Stephen Avenue Walk’s issues and opportunities in more depth.

Stephen Avenue Walk Needs More Than A Makeover Part 1

Stephen Avenue Walk Needs More Than A Makeover Part 2

Facing Reality: Difficulty Of Revitalizing Stephen Avenue Walk