The Calgary Municipal Land Corporation provided an update on their plans and projects for 2024 on Feb. 5, marking a record for CMLC as they surpassed more than one billion dollars in projects being overseen by the organization.
Among the projects due to come to completion within months are the $500 million BMO Centre Expansion and the $103 million redevelopment of the Victoria Park/Stampede LRT Station, which are both set to be completed in June.
Others, like the completion of the second phase of Stampede Trail, completion of Green Line infrastructure and station, hotel and residential developments in the Culture and Entertainment District and East Village are longer-term projects for CMLC.
“This is an exciting year that’s been many years in the making, culminating with quite a few groundbreakings and project starts as well as project completions,” said Kate Thompson, President and CEO of CMLC.
“Our team is poised and ready to advance over a billion dollars worth of major city building initiatives this year, and also further oversee development in East Village and start new projects as well—2024 is big for us.”
The growth in project oversight has increased substantially for CMLC. In 2018, the organization was overseeing $245 million in projects largely, made up of the work on the Central Library, to over one billion this year.
“That’s a five fold increase from where we were, and we increased about 30 per cent of our staff. I’d say each year though, brings its own complexities and delivery, but this is a big year because it’s a cumulative completion of many years. As our building and infrastructure team would say, each year you have to hit the milestones to get us to 2024.”
Thompson said that the value of projects set for completion during the calendar year exceed $600 million.
This year also marked the end of CMLC’s five-year strategic plan, which covered 2020 to the end of 2024, she said.
“We’ll be looking forward to 2025–2029 strategic plan, and we try to line those up with what we can do on behalf of the city,” Thompson said.
Culture and Entertainment District
The major projects currently underway for the Culture and Entertainment District, which CMLC is overseeing, include the BMO Centre Expansion, the Victoria Park/Stampede LRT Station, roadway work to connect 17 Avenue with Stampede Trail, Stampede Trail itself, the 6 Street SE underpass, the Calgary Stampede Hotel, and infrastructure work throughout the district.
CMLC is also hosting events, and contracting performance groups to serve in both an entertainment and wayfinding capacity for visitors to Victoria Park and the Beltline.
“We’ll be coordinating all the district infrastructure to support the new event center project, the sixth street underpass being the most significant of those,” said Thompson.
“In the next couple of weeks, you’ll see an RFP out to market for a progressive design build contract. We’ll be looking for a design build team to help us navigate the complexities of that area and bring that project to fruition. We’re really excited to find the right team to to work with us on that.”
Among the other major projects that are being undertaken within CMLC’s district plan are the Calgary Stampede’s SAM Centre, which is set to open later this year.
CMLC has been acting as the development coordinator for the entire district, as as a way to connect all of the different developers, construction companies, and stakeholders involved in the multitude of construction projects.
“You need somebody to be able to understand what everyone else is doing and take that communication and construction coordination role. So we stepped into that a couple years ago, seeing that the gap in coordination, and it’s gone really, really well,” said Thompson.
“As long as advanced notice happens and everyone knows what each other is doing, it tends to work a lot better. So it’s not a new role for us. It’s an ongoing one.”
Thompson said that there was also potential for development of the Calgary Transit bus facility located at 6 Street SE and 12 Avenue SE.
“Calgarians will remember the bus runs used to be down at Eau Claire, and they were moved over here to be outside of downtown. Now we’ve grown and we’re expanding as a city and this is actually a really important. The bus run sits on 11 acres of the downtown thats right beside the river, and is another really great development opportunity.”
East Village
CMLC has seen sustained interest in continued development in the East Village, said Thompson.
“We’ve been able to advance three letters of intent on different parcels in the district, so we’ll be moving those forward this year as well,” she said.
Thompson said that she wasn’t able to reveal which blocks of the East Village were under consideration yet, but that information would follow
“We’re not talking about which individual lots there are just because of the commercially sensitive nature of some of the negotiations, but there has been a lot of sustained interest in the district, for sure,” Thompson said.
“Everyone’s focused very much on residential, as we all are right now. So people are coming up with some really creative solutions as to how they bring retail and residential to the market, and also make it all work for their pro forma, for the market, and for bringing houses to Calgary residents.”
She said that some of the work being completed in this district recently included BOSA releasing 337 condo units to the public in the Arris building along 6 Street SE and 5 Avenue SE.
Further work is being done on EV606 next to the Simmons building, which when complete will provide 44 new residential units for the public.
“That’s 44 residential units under construction right now, in addition to about 9000 square feet of retail space on the main floor. So lots lots happening,” said Thompson.
Arts Commons and Olympic Plaza
This year will also be the year that construction work begins on Arts Commons, and changes begin to occur at Olympic Plaza to stage that construction work.
Thompson said that major design work on Olympic Plaza was also underway, and that the design documents for those projects would be released later this year.
“We’ll be excited to show you the designs and what’s going to be coming and taking shape on Phase One of the expansion of that project, and we’ll be moving forward the design on Olympic Plaza,” she said.
“The Olympic Plaza transformation [team] had a fantastic design meeting last week… and we’re really excited about where the team is going and what they’re thinking about with all the input from Calgarians as to what this space could be.”
Among those designs will be a brand new 1,000 -seat theatre and 200-seat studio theatre, which will be located in a new building next to Teatro’s.
Groundbreaking for that project is expected to be undertaken later in 2024.
