Development Permit Awarded for Calgary Sand Project After Lengthy Debate – Calgary | The Canadian News

After hours of debate until Thursday night, the Calgary Planning Commission gave the green light to begin construction of the new events center.

The commission voted unanimously to grant a development permit for the $ 608 million project in Victoria Park.

After reviewing the development permit application for the events center, the city administration recommended that the commission allow work to advance on a new arena for the Calgary Flames to play.

“The proposed development aligns with the applicable goals and policies of the Municipal Development Plan and the Beltline Area Redevelopment Plan,” the city report said.

But there are more than 70 conditions that must be met before development permission is awarded to architecture and planning firm Dialog and its project partner HOK.

Exterior design elements, solar energy panel installation locations, pedestrian lighting, and indigenous elements were among the planning conditions. Others included engineering, transportation and landscaping concerns.

Another condition, added Thursday night by the commission, asks the developer to add adequate infrastructure such as lighting, electrical hookups and drainage to allow a variety of outdoor events to take place in the area.

“If this was just a stadium, I could have left it in the Foothills Industrial Park at cheaper land costs than it is,” said District 7 city councilman Terry Wong.

“This is not an arena. This is an event center, a community gathering place … This will be a building that has 365 days (per year) of activation. Whether it’s inside or outside the building, people will want to be there. “

The planning commission also considered written letters from the local community and areas for business improvement on the design and public space.

City planners said that due to space and budget constraints, they pushed for the building and surrounding spaces to be as public-friendly as possible.

“These types of facilities usually require a lot of space in the back of the house,” said David Down, the city’s chief urban planner.

“So we pushed them to activate as much of the street frontage as possible to meet the Rivers District Master Plan requirement of creating a very lively and active street frontage, particularly along 4 Street, the festival street, and open it as much as possible. “

The building is expected to accommodate 18,377 spectators for hockey games and up to 20,203 people for concerts and other functions.

Sand is set to be carbon neutral by 2035 and achieve LEED Silver performance or better. It is also expected to have rooftop solar power to cover 6.5 percent of its electricity needs, a stormwater irrigation system, parking lots for electric vehicles and to prioritize car-free access.

Limestone and metal panels will be used on the exterior of the building, which will also include a large projection screen that will wrap around the building.

Although a projector system has not yet been selected, the project team said it would have the ability to project video and not just still images.

Renderings of the building included in the application package show a plaza on the southwest corner of the building and a parkade on the southeast side, with spaces for commercial businesses and restaurants along the north and west sides of the arena.

According to the city, the event center’s vision is for it to become a catalyst for the development of the proposed Cultural, Entertainment and Education District.

While there is support for the project, some community groups are concerned that the plan to attract people to the area will not be fulfilled in its current design.

Both the Beltline Neighborhoods Association and the Victoria Park Business Improvement Area wrote letters encouraging more “public activation” for people in the area when there is no hockey game or concert inside the building.

“The promised activation of the cultural and entertainment district that it is supposed to be an anchor is really disappointing and unconvincing,” said Peter Oliver, president of the Beltline Neighborhoods Association.

Oliver said his group has proposed a food market with local vendors and other initiatives to help attract people to the neighborhood throughout the year.

The project team told the commission that the building’s operator, Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corp., wants to host more than 170 events inside and outside the building throughout the year, and not just hockey games.

“You should be able to go there, not spend a penny or set foot in the building, and still have a very high-quality experience,” said David Low of the Victoria Park BIA. “That’s the overall (target) for the amount of public money that we think should be present.”

Low added that he believes the project “done right” would help create one of the best entertainment districts in North America.

“And I mean it seriously,” he said.

Dialog representatives told the commission that connectivity to the street front is included in the design with outdoor spaces incorporated into future restaurant and business sites.

As for the building’s appearance, the architecture team said it was tasked with designing a building that would suit the neighborhood and the buildings that will eventually be built around it.

“Very deliberately, from the beginning, we decided not to design a building of objects and create a building of context,” said Dialog senior architect Doug Cinnamon.

“Each street has a different character.”

Construction of the event center is scheduled to begin in early 2022, with the goal of opening its doors in 2024.

The project is still subject to appeal.

The development permit application for the Saddledome replacement came after a revised agreement was agreed in July between the City of Calgary and CSEC that would limit the city’s contribution to the arena at $ 287.5 million, and the Flames property. assumed any possible overcharge.

The revised agreement also saw the removal of Calgary Municipal Land Corp. as project manager to allow CSEC to contract with another company.