Located just off 78 Avenue SE, a sun-bleached, formerly turquoise tin roof shelters the walls of a red-brick building. Smashed windows line the exterior, leaving shards of broken glass beneath weeds overgrowing on the sidewalk.

If not for a billboard blaring the building’s title, it’s unlikely that the 154th branch of the Royal Canadian Legion would be recognized as the place where residents of Millican-Ogden bonded with their neighbours for nearly 70 years.

When a new buyer took ownership of the almost one-acre lot in 2012, the legion closed shortly after, and the once bustling spot has been vacant ever since. 

In October 2024, the City of Calgary issued a demolition order when citing the level of deterioration as a risk to public safety. This prompted the property owner to request a judicial review, which was dismissed by the Court of King’s Bench.

LiveWire Calgary contacted the owner, Dean McKenzie, who confirmed that since attempting the appeal, he has hired a contractor to complete the demolition. He refused to comment further about when the demolition is expected to take place.

In a statement, the city said they are in contact with the company to ensure the demolition happens in a “timely manner,” but did not establish a firm date.

Ward 9 Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra said that if the owner fails to initiate the demolition, the city is authorized to step in and accelerate the process.

“It would not surprise me if this is one of those properties that ends up eventually on the property tax auction,” he said.

Out with the old, in with the new

Coun. Carra said that the building had “problematic” structural issues like leaking before the current owner took over, and that their lack of development only escalated matters.

“The owner has really resisted all efforts to do anything,” he said. 

“That site slipped into lawlessness and encampment.”

President of the Millican Ogden Community Association (MOCA), Lorraine Robinson, remembered the legion having a curling rink, pub, commercial-grade kitchen, and auditorium. 

“It’s always hurtful when you know that was such a beautiful building,” she said. 

Nostalgia aside, Robinson said that members of the community have wanted the building gone for a while to enhance the possibility of something replacing it in the future. 

With big dreams to revitalize Main Street on Ogden Road, Carra said that until his time on the council is finished in the fall, he will work toward progressing development opportunities in the neighbourhood. 

Carra named housing, urban shopping centres, and public spaces as items included in the Millican-Ogden Local Area Plan and said these are expected to be finalized before the Green Line LRT is completed.

But just east of the old legion building, located at the end of 78 Avenue SE below the Canadian Pacific railway, the early phases of Green Line construction — including a bridge and vehicle tunnel — have already started. 

What has not happened, Robinson said, is the release of a finalized Area Redevelopment Plan (ARP) for residential construction.

“[The] Green Line stuff has taken place over any other kind of redevelopment in the community,” she said.

“It’s frustrating.”

In an email statement, the city said that the council obtains funding from higher levels of government to push forward sizable public infrastructure projects, like constructing the Green Line LRT.

Naming this a major public project, the city said it offers other programs aimed at improving communities, including the Established Area Growth and Change Strategy and the This is My Neighbourhood initiative.

As of Jun. 3, the Investing in Established Communities interactive map shows no approved or pending developments in the Millican-Ogden area. Additionally, though several improvement initiatives were scheduled to be implemented in 2018, key projects, such as the historical markers and public art, are still listed as on hold.

Aside from these, the city stressed that redevelopment is often piloted by builders and homeowners who submit land use proposals to the city. According to the Development Map, the Ogden community district has had 8 permits approved out of the 89.

Patterns of promises and pitfalls: Why residents feel left behind

Officially recognized as Millican-Ogden, the community is comprised of Ogden, Millican Estates, and Lynnwood and is one of Calgary’s oldest. Established as a rail town in 1912, it was named after lawyer W.J. Millican and former Canadian Pacific Railway vice president, I.G. Ogden. 

Millican led early development efforts, which were later halted by court battles for the land title. Once developed in the 1920s, the century to follow saw Imperial Oil initiating land remediation for housing in Lynnwood Ridge after soil contamination was discovered in 2001.

With a history shaped by train transportation and turbulent development, residents have continually taken it upon themselves to advocate for what they want. But much like their predecessors, they have received more unfulfilled promises than improvements.

In 1993, the city worked with MOCA to create a Community Revitalization Plan. According to the original document, the city aimed to allow “community residents and merchants to have greater control over decisions that affect them.”

When it was approved by the city council in 1999, this directed the administration to create an ARP specifically for Millican-Ogden, which was developed as part of the Transit Oriented Development study in 2015.

One year later, the city grouped Millican-Ogden with other communities slated to eventually be home to Green Line LRT stations, including Ramsay, Inglewood, South Hill, and Riverbend.

With a focus on transit development, this materialized as three individual draft ARPs, which were presented by the city to each neighbourhood during community engagement meetings.

Before being upgraded to president, Robinson was the director of MOCA, and in 2016, she felt that no progress had been made toward healing the concerns outlined by Millican-Ogden residents in the original ARP.

“There was a lot of frustration initially working with the city team,” said Robinson.

However, the city said that the plan is intended to act as a reference for when individual property owners decide to build something on their land by applying for this through the city, not a set-in-stone development guide.

“Established areas continuously change and evolve,” read the email statement.

“Citizen direction on needs and desires informs The City of Calgary evaluations of required public infrastructure investment.”

Beginning in 2016, the city demonstrated strides toward prioritizing the viewpoints of Millican-Ogden residents by holding an additional meeting with only members of that neighbourhood.

In the two years to follow, the city asked community members for feedback on the draft ARP through hosting online public surveys and discussions with the Green Line Area Redevelopment Committee, according to a report released by the city in February 2018.

Longtime resident and former MOCA president, Colleen Whelan, 63, attended several engagement events and found the ones about the construction of the Green Line to be the most effective. 

She felt that the city was less productive at making what residents wanted developed in their neighbourhood into a reality.

“I don’t have a clue what happens if they just throw those sticky notes in the garbage,” said Whelan. 

“Because you don’t see it translate.”

When engagement events concluded and the draft ARP was released in 2018, Robinson said they were practically prepared to hit the ground running — until the entire project was put on pause. 

That year, the city announced that instead of moving forward with individual ARPs, several Green Line-impacted neighbourhoods located in the southeast of the city would be grouped into one development plan.

The city confirmed in a statement that Ogden, Riverbend, Shepard Industrial, Quarry Park, and parts of Douglas Glen comprise Area 34 in the re-launched Local Area Planning (LAP) Program.

“So, two years of many, many hours put into that…. shelf that,” said Robinson. 

She said they were supposed to be updated in December 2024, but that got moved to January and then to fall 2025. Robinson said they’re still waiting for an update.

The city said that they approve LAPs in rounds, and that successful plans are weighed against how much redevelopment is already happening in an area, and if there are enough resources available to fund the project.

According to the city, the next round is expected to be announced by the end of 2025 or in the early days of 2026.

“A specific timeline for the launch of the local area planning processes that includes Ogden is currently unknown,” read the email statement.

What do residents want to see built?

Jackie Johnson Bernard, 63, has lived in Lynnwood for more than 30 years. The community’s picturesque scenery and convenient access to major roads would have been her favourite parts about living there had she been asked years ago. 

Today, Johnson Bernard said that it’s the people.

“With the shift in attitude, this neighbourhood is becoming the neighbourhood I always dreamed,” she said. 

The shift she’s referring to is one toward a singular identity. Historically, Johnson Bernard said the three neighbourhoods were metaphorically bordered by stereotypes, where Lynnwood housed more educated, wealthy residents, and Ogden the opposite. 

When it was announced that a Mustard Seed would be built in Ogden, she remembered some residents feeling discontent about the location and the types of people that the five-storey charity would attract. 

“It was a lot of nimbyism, and it was really kind of distressing,” said Johnson Bernard. 

Since being built on 74 Avenue SE, she said that the community has become more involved with one another and that it has welcomed diversity by increasing the number of families in the area.

Johnson Bernard said that her immediate community mostly comprises married couples, couples with grown children, and retirees. She said she wants development to focus on affordable housing to incentivize young couples to settle there.

“I’d like to see more families come into the neighbourhood, and that’s the way it’s becoming,” she said.

Also residing in Lynnwood, Whelan said that residential housing is needed in the community. Particularly, she said, for older people, due to Millican-Ogden’s considerably high senior population. 

Being a realtor by day and a member of the Millican and Ogden Heritage Group — an informal committee advocating to keep historical architecture — by night, she worries if their aging water and sewer infrastructure is stable enough to handle new builds. 

Whelan said that plans should consider preserving the old while making the new. 

“It would be really good to see development, but to remember our roots,” she said. 

“Just keep some of that character alive.”

Overall, residents sang to the tune that MOCA has been humming to the city for decades: that rejuvenation is invited in the area, but only if it doesn’t displace the generations of people calling it home.  

“Ogden has kept its small-town atmosphere…because of the passion of some of the people living here,” said Whelan. 

“But that thread has always been a part of this community.”