The transformation of Calgary’s venerable Olympic Plaza has reached another milestone, with CMLC, the City of Calgary, and Arts Commons announcing the completion of public consultation on the project on Aug. 27.

CMLC held information sessions at Olympic Plaza, as well as an online survey, to gather information from Calgarians as to what they wanted to see in a brand new redesign for the downtown park space.

The top design features requested, in order of requests, were green space, a performance and concert area, festive lighting, an outdoor eatery and patio, and a skating surface. Calgarians also wanted to ensure that the new plaza space allowed for free outdoor concerts, programming opportunities for festivals and cultural events, and other types of outdoor and art activities.

Speaking to the media on Tuesday, CMLC CEO Kate Thompson said that she was glad they gathered feedback from Calgarians in all four quadrants of the city, including the downtown core.

“We’ve heard from Calgarians who live near this area, and live far and use this as a destination to come into. That’s all important feedback to start informing the design, and informing what’s to come,” she said.

“What Calgarians are really looking forward to is a place to gather and a place as easy to gather. This space is used by so many different communities and different groups to celebrate, and we want to make that as easy as possible and as adaptable as—that people can come down here, host a festival, have a great concert, and also just come down on a Saturday and have a coffee and gather.”

A total of 3,111 Calgarians responded to the online survey, and CMLC held 11 in-person pop-ups and 9 workshops. Stakeholder groups were also consulted on the transformation, representing 3,332 people consulted for the redesign process.

“That report really was a great chance to talk to Calgarians about their city, about their space, and hearing back from them. We’re hearing about their aspirations, about the what they want to see in this plaza in the future, but also what’s not working today,” said Thompson.

Among the things that are currently working for Calgarians, and they would like to retain in addition to the winter time skating, was the Women are Persons! monument located in the southwest corner of Olympic Plaza.

A number of respondents said that they were opposed to the redevelopment of Olympic Plaza, with 185 wanting capital funds set aside for the redevelopment redirected to operational supports for social services, and 245 opposed to any funding being provided towards the redevelopment at all.

Safety represented the number one barrier to access concern, with more than 1,400 responses noting that as a concern.

“All Calgarians are interested in safety and really making sure that to come to a place they feel safe and secure, and that builds a great city, people feeling like they can go anywhere and feel safe. We’ve heard that. It’s something that we hear throughout our downtown,” said Thompson.

Thom Mahler, The City of Calgary’s Director of Downtown Strategy, said that one of the reasons why the plaza was being redesigned was to address concerns that Calgarians had expressed about the park—safety being one of those concerns – in addition to accessibility, and a lack of events that interest them.

“Part of the goal with this redesign is to give people things to do in this space, so when they do pass through it there’s activity, there’s a sense of safety, there’s purpose in what they do when they come to this space. But also to make it very equitable and accessible for many Calgarians, so that everybody can do some living in this public space.”

Designing for today, and for the future

The next phase of work to develop a design for the plaza was to take the feedback from the public to determine what the public might want and need in the future.

“Having a design team understand the difference between today and tomorrow, when having no idea what tomorrow is going to be, is really a sign of a great team. They have to look at trends, they have to look at what we’re seeing today, but also how you can be adaptable and flexible for change,” Thompson said.

She used the pandemic as something that the designers of the plaza could have never anticipated. Basic principles like creating a space that allows for many people but also doesn’t feel uncomfortable for small groups to gather, and providing amenities like power and lighting for events of the future, would be part of the redesign, she said.

What won’t be making the redesign are certain structural and decorative elements of the plaza, including the name bricks that were purchased by Calgarians ahead of the 1988 Winter Olympics.

Thompson said that those bricks when removed, are likely to crumble and that the cost to preserve the bricks would be a huge expense on top of construction costs for the rest of the redevelopment.

“There was a study done in 2016 that showed the bricks, though they look fantastic, to take them out is a huge expense and also not necessarily going to be a successful endeavor. I think Calgarians would want us to make sure that we’re being mindful of how we use our funds and how we approach this,” she said.

“Taking them out individually has proved to be quite an exercise: both costly and not a guarantee.”

CMLC and the City of Calgary plan on holding six Brick by Brick events throughout September to help Calgarians find their brick, and to have it professionally photographed, and make materials available for visitors to make a rubbing of their engraved name or message.

The City of Calgary has put together a digital map of all the bricks, and that can be used to help guide Calgarians physically to their brick until the end of December, and then digitally afterward.

“For the city, it is really important that we recognize and honour the investment that Calgarians made in these bricks. We are recognizing that fact and honouring that was part of the original design, and to allow Calgarians to continue to access it for future generations, too,” said Mahler.

That future design also had to reflect upon what might happen as part of the larger redevelopment goals of both the City of Calgary and of property owners that surround Olympic Plaza, he said.

“Olympic Plaza was brought to Calgary through the Olympics. Before the Olympics came, this was a collection of privately owned parcels with private buildings on it. It gave us this facility, which has worked tremendously for many, many decades, and now it’s an opportunity to rethink, well, what does Calgary look like 40 years out? What kinds of things will Calgarians want to do? What will they need to do? And how do we do that?” Mahler said.

“While this plaza is being designed, we’re also looking at the design for 1 Street SE. We’re considering what Macleod Trail will do. But what we’re doing as a city is thinking about how we connect people between these major destinations that that we’re developing.”

Final Arts Commons concert to be held at original plaza on Aug. 28

Arts Commons CEO Alex Sarian said that the public feedback received by CMLC would not only go to the design team for the redesign but also inform the types of programming that would be held in the space post-construction.

The organization is set to become the stewards for the park once it has completed construction, as part of an overall campus direction for what will become known as the Werkland Centre.

“We’ve talked a lot about the ice skating rink, and I sat in my office last winter looking out and seeing thousands of people coming ice skating, and in the back of my mind thinking, ‘I hope this makes its way back in, because that’s what people are showing us, and they’re voting with their feet,'” said Sarian.

“Today’s a lot about stakeholder engagement, and what we’ve heard. I was in so many of those meetings, and while the design team might have been listening to it through the lens of what do we design, our filter has always been how do people want to use this plaza.”

He said that would be a commitment through his organization to make it easier for community groups and events to utilize Olympic Plaza, and that the current commitment to making the space available for civic and community purposes would remain.

“You’ve noticed that we are an arts organization that is trying to blur the line between culture and civics. What does it mean to be a civic center? What does it mean to be a cultural center? That means that ice skating is a cultural activity. It means that political protest is a cultural activity,” Sarian said.

With that pivot to being a steward over an entire campus of culture and arts has come funding from both the Government of Alberta and from private donors, Sarian said.

“It’s also worth noting that this idea of the campus is what has unlocked provincial funding. Many of you were there earlier this year when we announced a historic provincial announcement. Many of you were there a few months ago when we announced the Werkland gift, the largest philanthropic gift to the performing arts in Canadian history,” he said.

“A lot of this is happening because we are telling a different story, and being able to embrace the legacy of Olympic Plaza.”

As a final farewell, but not the final performance for the plaza, Arts Commons planned a Aug. 28 concert entitled Plaza For All, featuring a stop of their own farewell tour for Canadian icons Emerson Drive, and up-and-coming Calgary artist Kyle McKearney.

“Even though tomorrow is our big concert, I will say that Fiesta Filipino is moving in immediately after. So, Olympic Plaza is still going to be around for a few more months, and with it all of the people that use it and program it, but tomorrow is a celebration of sorts,” said Sarian.

Olympic Plaza will be closed from the end of 2024 through 2028 for the construction of the new Arts Commons theatre and for the redevelopment of the plaza.