When the shovels hit the ground on Dec. 11, on the new Arts Commons Transformation project, it marked a major milestone decades in the making on Canada’s largest ever capital building project for the arts.

Although the sod turning on Wednesday was ceremonial, when the actual diggers start moving earth in January, it will mean the vision for an expanded art space including two brand new theatres in the heart of Downtown Calgary will come to fruition.

Arts Commons CEO Alex Sarian said the project was an investment into the future of the city, and into the investment of culture in Calgary.

“When people ask me how it’s possible for a project like this, a project like ours, to receive so much attention and support in challenging times, I am quick to respond that it is because of how we have collectively repositioned the role of the arts as being in service to our city and province, well-being socially, economically and culturally,” Sarian said.

The entire transformation of Arts Commons is set to cost $660 million, with $270 million for the first phase of the project, which includes the new theatre complex.

Kate Thompson, CEO of the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation, joked at the groundbreaking that this now meant there was no going back.

“This is a moment in our city. This is a moment in our province. I know everyone at CMLC and on the entire team is thrilled to be a part of it,” she said.

In the short term, Calgarians would be seeing a lot of fencing going up around Olympic Plaza at the end of December, Thompson said.

“This is a really large site. Anyone who’s been down to an event at Olympic Plaza knows how large it is. Olympic Plaza, in combination with the site and the footprint of the new arts commons building, will really transform this area,” she said.

When complete, the project will have a 1,000-seat performance theatre, a 200-seat studio theatre, along with interior small performance spaces within an open lobby concept.

The design itself was created to reflect design influences from local Alberta Indigenous culture.

Ground broken on the way performances are held at Arts Commons

Part of the project’s goal was to open up usage of Arts Commons out of the traditional evening performance model, Sarian said.

“A lot of the amenities in our current facility, whether it’s public space, whether it’s lobby space, whether it’s food and beverage can only be accessed if you bought a ticket to a show. Really, that means you’re only accessing it maybe four or five nights a week after 6 or 7 p.m.,” he said.

“A lot of the designs you’re going to start seeing are going to give you the impression that these are spaces that are accessible and available all day, every day, and that not only changes people’s relationship to downtown Calgary, and people’s relationship to arts and culture, it also changes our relationship to how we present and produce.”

Sarian said that has caused a lot of excitement in the artist community to increase the ability to present arts in unconventional ways.

The projected opening for the theatre space is set to be ahead of start of the 2028 theatre season. Sarian said, however, it would not be home to a resident company or multiple resident companies like how Arts Commons has traditionally operated.

“One of the things I love about Arts Commons is that our business model is dependent on what I call the democratization of culture. We know that we’re turning away hundreds of event requests per year by organizations and community groups within Calgary,” he said.

“The ability for us to increase our seating capacity and increase our venue capacity doesn’t just mean that that the ArtsCommons programming team will have more spaces to program within—while that is true—I’m also slightly more excited about the conversations that we get to have around partnering with others, raising the tide for all.”

He said that while the intent was to honour the legacy and history of the resident companies in Arts Commons, there was a desire to welcome a greater diversity of artistic companies into Arts Commons and also to potentially subsidize usage of the space.

“It’s no secret that arts organizations are struggling post pandemic, and so for the City of Calgary and the province of Alberta, and for Arts Commons to be investing in what I consider an ecosystem that is meant and designed to support others, I think not only is that a great gift to the to the city that is Calgary, but it’s an incredible gift to the small and mid sized organizations that are trying to figure out what it means to grow in a city that is growing as fast as Calgary,” Sarian said.

Project three-quarters funded, with additional funding on the way

The entire project had been able to secure 75 per cent of the total in funding ahead of the ground being broken as a result of the incredible generosity of both the City of Calgary, Government of Alberta, and private donors like the Werkland Family, said Sarian.

Earlier in 2024, he announced that the Government of Alberta would be putting $103 million towards the project, alongside $75 million from the Werkland family which would see Arts Commons being renamed to the Werkland Centre in 2025.

“We are still talking to the Government of Canada to see if they will participate in the project, and we are in the quiet phase of our fundraising campaign—so a lot of announcements coming, but we are cautiously optimistic,” said Sarian.

Although throughout the history of the project, not all orders of government, or city councillors within Calgary have been supportive of the project.

Mayor Jyoti Gondek said that when she was first elected as Ward 3 Councillor in 2017, she started to have discussions about the role of the arts in Calgary with her colleagues who were skeptical.

“I tried to understand what they weren’t believing in, and so I put together a lot of different business cases for them. I talked to them about the growth in GDP when it comes to the creative sector, the number of jobs that are produced within the sector, not only during construction of a major project like this, but afterwards,” she said.

“There were many people who didn’t understand the value of having a strong arts and culture community on newcomer experiences, on children’s brain development, on the fact that this creates a sense of belonging. So, for all the naysayers that we had on council back in 2017, we were able to shift their understanding of why the arts matter.”

For her part, Tanya Fir, Minister of Arts, Culture and Status of Women, said that the government was proud to have made their $103 million investment into the Arts Commons Transformation as it would lead to a large return on investment for Albertans.

“It continues to show that Alberta is an ‘and’ province, not an ‘or’ province where we’re not agriculture or arts, oil and gas, or tourism. We’re all those things, and what projects like this do for jobs during construction, post construction, jobs, economic diversification, tourism it’s a win-win,” she said.

“Not to mention having an incredible home for Alberta artists, to be able to stay in Alberta and have a career in Alberta, and attract other artists and cultural people from around the world.”

The response from her meetings around the world about what has been going on in the Calgary arts scene was “wow,” Minister Fir said.

“Wow is what I’m hearing from folks, ‘like Calgary? Calgary? Really, Alberta, you’ve got projects like this?” Minister Fir said.

“When I get to travel in my position and talk to people about what we have going on in Calgary, people are impressed and excited, and it does so much for our name recognition and for our city.”

ACT a major component of Calgary’s downtown revitalization

The design of the new theatre complex has been recognized as being part of the architectural revolution ongoing in Calgary’s downtown said Thom Mahler, Director of Downtown Strategy with the City of Calgary.

It is set to take its place alongside other architectural landmarks like the National Music Centre, the Calgary Public Library Central Library, and the BMO Centre and the upcoming Glenbow Museum redesign which features work from internationally acclaimed architect Maya Lin.

“People are saying, ‘how are you guys doing all this?’ I think that collaboration between all orders of government and private sector, investment, and philanthropy that is a perfect storm of people just wanting to take us to the next level,” Mahler said.

But the number of major projects being built in Calgary right now does have the potential to put pressure on both completion timelines and budgets.

Thompson said that CMLC as the development manager for the ACT, has been paying attention to when tenders go out for other projects, and putting out their own tenders accordingly.

“Because labour is an ongoing issue for all of these projects moving forward in our province, the best we can do is making sure we understand everything happening and making plans about releasing to market when we can have the best opportunity for timing,” she said.

“I mean, all of these big projects… what a fortunate position to be in, in our province and our city, to have these projects underway.”