Calgary to transform Olympic Plaza by bundling area revitalization projects together

The City of Calgary is moving forward on plans to give Olympic Plaza a face-lift while moving the project under the same umbrella as other revitalization projects in the area.

Officials with the city’s downtown strategy team, the Calgary Municipal Land Corp. (CMLC) and Arts Commons, announced the move on Tuesday following the proposal’s unanimous approval by city council.

“The Olympic Plaza transformation project clearly illustrates the renaissance in Calgary’s downtown and it’s poised to add to the experience of other revitalization projects,” Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek said.

City officials said upgrading the plaza, which was constructed for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary to host medal ceremonies, has been a long-overdue project.

“The lifecycle is at a stage where it’s starting to crumble,” said City of Calgary downtown strategy director Thom Mahler. “Now is the opportunity with the leadership from Arts Commons, and our arts community in general, and CMLC to really dig into this to provide a space that’s going to last another 30 to 50 years.”

The Olympic Plaza upgrades are being bundled together with the Arts Commons Transformation and improvements to a portion of Stephen Avenue with CMLC to serve as the development manager for all three projects.

CMLC president and CEO Kate Thompson told the reporters the move will help with coordination and efficiencies while delivering all three projects in the same area.

“If there are any efficiencies on the construction side, the delivery or the process side, we can find them together, versus having them separately or separate and later,” Thompson said. “When you build projects at a later date, the costs go up. … This is a smart move by the city to coordinate and bundle so that we can find those efficiencies.”

CMLC said it will be releasing requests for proposals for a “qualified and visionary design team” in the coming weeks, with project design expected to begin later this year and continue through 2024.

Design development and project initiation on Olympic Plaza is expected to cost $40 million, which is already included in the $108 million that city council has already earmarked in funds for the downtown strategy over the next three years in the latest budget deliberations.

More funding will be needed to begin construction on the project.

Thompson said it would be up to the design team to determine how the transformation project would honour the area’s Olympic heritage, including the thousands of bricks etched with the names of donors to Calgary’s Olympics dream back in 1988.

“Stay tuned,” Thompson said.

Once the upgrades to Olympic Plaza are complete, the programming like concerts and activations in the space will be managed by Arts Commons, which will also operate and maintain the revitalized plaza.

“As cherished as Olympic Plaza is, it is deteriorating,” said Arts Commons CEO Alex Sarian. “Sometimes these innovate programs happen in spite of the condition the plaza is in, as opposed to because of them.”

There is no firm timeline in place for construction on revitalizing Olympic Plaza, but Thompson said it would be a phased process with shovels going in the ground on the Arts Commons Transformation at the end of 2024.

To facilitate construction on Arts Commons and Olympic Plaza, city officials said events and programming in the plaza would be paused at the end of next year, and the city will work with event coordinators to find different locations until the projects are finished.

“Calgarians, when you come to this space, shouldn’t feel the difference between walking on Stephen Avenue and walking on Olympic Plaza. It should just be a great place to be,” Thompson said. “That’ll be our ambition.”

Council’s approval on Tuesday also allowed the city to re-direct funding to the Glenbow Reimagined project, which is currently over budget.

The $12 million in Cultural Municipal Sustainability Initiative funding was earmarked for projects at the Calgary Opera and Fort Calgary that have since been cancelled, but will now help offset escalation and inflation costs for construction at the Glenbow Museum.

Museum officials said the money will also support the development of a rooftop terrace and a new theatre in the building.

“Since this project first began the response from our community has been overwhelming,” said Glenbow president and CEO Nicholas Bell in a statement. “Calgarians are clamouring for a benchmark-setting art museum in their downtown. We are thankful to The City for enabling us to deliver more impact and value to this community for generations to come.”

City administration said the project is over its original $115 million budget estimate because of rising costs of materials and labour, hazardous materials abatement, conserving and moving art, and additional code upgrades.

Bell said the cost escalations on the project are within 10 per cent of the original budget, but there is still $6.5 million the museum will have to find to cover the overruns.

All three levels of government have committed funding for the project, including $40 million each from the province and the federal government, and now $37 million from the City of Calgary.

Private donations, including $35 million from the Shaw Family Foundation, have also gone into covering the cost of the project and to making admission free when the building opens in 2025.