Victoria Park: A 21st Century community

It was the center of town, the place to be seen, the happening core of a young boomtown early in the 20th century, and after decades of being overlooked Victoria Park’s glorious yesteryear may soon be here again.

Today, more than a hundred years since its founding, Victoria Park is in transition. It will soon again be the centre of social, cultural and commercial life that it seemed always destined to be, as revitalization efforts are underway.

The City-owned Calgary Municipal Lands Corporation (CMLC) is overseeing more than$600 million of redevelopment projects that are currently underway and will bring prominence again to Victoria Park, that will hopefully mirror or even surpass the success of East Village. The latter was the first redevelopment project that CMLC spearheaded, and this previously disused, brown land is now a bustling, dynamic urban centre.

CMLC compelted the Rivers District master plan for east Victoria Park in 2018. It brings a 20-year vision for a Calgary’s Culture + Entertainment district that will turn it into a vibrant, high-density, mixed-use community that draws on its historic past as the centre of town.

Anchoring the revitalization efforts is the $500 million expansion of the BMO Centre on Stampede Park that will make it the biggest convention space in western Canada. But that is hardly the last.

There is also the redesign of the Stampede LRT Station that will beautify and increase access to this eastern edge of the downtown, as well as the 17th Avenue SE extension that aims to reconnect Victoria Park to the already booming Beltline community. And there’s more.

The vision for east Victoria Park will result in four million square feet of mixed-use development and more than 8,000 new residents moving into the district, says Clare LePan, CMLC’s Vice President, Marketing & Communications.

“Our priority is to enhance the existing urban fabric – including new mixed use development sites, Calgary Stampede Park and the Elbow River – and reshape east Victoria Park as an active, walkable, and accessible community with enhanced connections to adjacent neighbourhoods.”

She tells Calgary New Home + Condo Guide that Victoria Park is in transition right now, with a ton of construction activity going on. “We’ll start seeing projects coming to completion by 2024, including the BMO Centre expansion.”

She says the biggest challenge in the redevelopment of Victoria Park is coordinating construction activity in an area that gets about three million visitors a year. “We didn’t have this challenge when we were redeveloping East Village.”
But all the temporary inconvenience is expected to pay off handsomely.

The BMO Centre expansion is going full steam ahead. Having proudly served as Calgary’s premier venue for consumer and trade shows, special events, meetings and conferences since 1982, the facility is now undergoing its most substantial renovation ever.

This expansion is a key component of CMLC’s Rivers District Master Plan. Valued at $500 million – and supported through equal contributions from the Government of Canada, Government of Alberta and The City of Calgary – the BMO Centre’s expansion will increase its total floor space by over one million square feet, more than doubling its rentable area. When completed, it will be the largest such facility in western Canada and will give Calgary top-tier destination status in the competitive international meetings and conventions market.

The new BMO Centre will have a hotel component too. CMLC and the Calgary Stampede have announced a partnership with a hotel developer in December last year and design of the 220-room hotel is underway.

Then, there is the 17th Avenue SE extension. This will see the vital roadway extended eastward across Macleod Trail and the LRT tracks into Stampede Park. “For a long while, this part of town seemed isolated from the rest of the Beltline. This will see it connected to the whole,” LePan says.

It is CMLC’s first horizontal infrastructure project in east Victoria Park, this extension will forge a new pedestrian and vehicular link to enable the smoother flow of traffic into and out of Stampede Park, and it will establish a new retail corridor that will catalyze further commercial development in the area.

Construction broke ground in July 2021 and will be closely coordinated with construction on the nearby BMO Centre expansion – both of which will wrap up in 2024, along with the Stampede LRT improvement.

Further down the road are projects that will improve Stampede Trail, and hopefully a home for the Calgary Flames, as well.
There are around 2800 residents in east Victoria Park already, according to a recent City census. And this is expected to increase in the years to come, as LePan says there more 30 acres of developable land in the Rivers District master plan.
“There will be plenty of opportunities to own a home here in the near future,” she says. Right now, resale apartment condos are available in the Guardian and Arriva towers. New, purpose-built rental units are also widely available.

There is already an established dining and entertainment scene in Vic Park, as it is lovingly called by residents. There is the Embarcadero Oyster Bar, a long-time favourite among locals. Then there is also Village Ice Cream along 10th Avenue SE for dessert. New is Harmony Restaurant on 17th Avenue SE, quickly gaining fame for its Middle Eastern fare.

Find out more about the east Victoria redevelopment at calgarymlc.ca.