The Scotia Place Event Centre to ignite Calgary’s downtown revitalization

By Julianna Keskic, Vama Saini and Nazeefa Ahmed October 30 2024—

The Scotia Place Event Centre has been green-lit to break ground. This marks the next phase of Calgary’s Greater Downtown Plan and introduces the latest addition to the Calgary Event Centre Block, following the recent opening of the BMO Centre. The emerging culture and entertainment district has become the City of Calgary’s focal point for the revitalization of the downtown core and surrounding areas.

The Province of Alberta, the City of Calgary, the Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation and the Calgary Stampede have signed agreements to move forward to the design and construction phase of the Calgary Events Centre project. The arena is set to cost $800 million, while other expenses, including surrounding infrastructure, will bring the total price to $1.22 billion. The Alberta Provincial Government is providing $330 million for infrastructure investments, including land purchases, road and bridge construction and demolishing the Saddledome.

Investment, infrastructure and economic impacts

In an interview with the Gauntlet, Dr. Eliot Tretter — associate professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Calgary — discussed how this project is set to redefine downtown Calgary from an urban geography and urban planning perspective.

“The land that the Stampede grounds and Saddledome are on is underutilized and by building the new centre the city can solve the issue [of] the dilapidated Saddledome as well as create a way to use the land over a longer duration throughout the year,” said Tretter.

There is discussion and ongoing efforts to find ways to re-energize the space and solve the issue of such a large, centralized and underutilized space in our city’s urban core. Tretter describes how investment in large infrastructure projects compound and support other infrastructure projects. This cumulative causation could lead to the further development of Calgary.

“There’s no doubt that the larger picture will show that redevelopment of the Stampede is connected to larger infrastructure projects like the Green Line, the expansion of the airport, the remaking of the art space around City Hall, the rebuilding of City Hall [and] the East Village,” Tretter said.

He explains that while displacement of people is not likely — as downtown has many fixed housing units that will remain as they make up a vast percentage of that kind of housing in the City as a whole — displacement of businesses and overall changes in the built environment is inevitable.

“If we look at Chinatown, the elderly are quite upset about the possibility of redevelopment. There are many buildings that are mostly vacant. Those buildings are actually community spaces for groups called societies — an example is the Lin Society or Sien Lok society,” Tretter said.

He further added that these changes will vastly change the way communities of people interact with each other and their surrounding space.

“Those buildings are under tremendous pressure because the value of the real estate’s gone up. The societies that are there don’t have a lot of reinvestment potential. They’re private organizations. They don’t receive state funding. And thus, they will most likely have to shut down,” Tretter added.

The displacement of businesses in the local community will may great a barrier to access to community.

“Things like local budget-friendly grocery stores, community centers and local family-owned businesses are lost as the premiums go up for commercial spaces in the newly developed area,” said Tretter.

Accessibility and cultural integration in design

The design of this centre is grounded in providing accessibility for all by following the City of Calgary Corporate Accessibility Policy, Social Well-Being Policy, Access and Design Standards, and the standards outlined in the Rick Hansen Foundation Accessibility Certification.

Highlights from the design features include barrier-free access. Scotia Place will be one of the few event centres in North America where all entrances are barrier-free. Accessible seating options will be available throughout and include companion seats. Visible, tactile and vibrant signs will be placed inside and outside to help visitors navigate. All levels will have ramps and elevators to ensure every level is accessible. Quiet spaces designed to reduce anxiety, stress or sensory overload will be available.

All event screens, television and video replay systems will provide descriptive text or closed captioning. Tretter highlighted how the potential for more live music events may have influenced the city’s decision to invest in this project.

“In the case of music and concerts at Saddledome, the relationship between revenues and venues, in broad terms, is structured in a way that the live music portion of the revenues go to the artist and historically revenues from recorded music went to the label. And the revenues from the live music went to the artist,” Tretter explained.

“So if a venue is only of a certain size, it’s simply not enough revenue for the artist to serve them. And Calgary was unable to meet certain kinds of venue thresholds. So a lot of artists would skip Calgary for that reason and go to Edmonton, but some of them wouldn’t even go to Alberta,” Tretter continued.

The Scotia Place Event Centre is also designed with indigenous influences, a priority of universal accessibility, and offering more public plazas to revitalize the urban core of Calgary.

Based on The City of Calgary’s Indigenous Policy Framework, an Indigenous Advisory Committee met over four day-long sessions in spring 2024. Representatives from all the Treaty 7 Nations, the Metis Nation of Alberta and the Urban Indigenous Community of Calgary held discussions around the inclusion of indigenous cultural representation in the project.

The result of these conversations was the incorporation of seven main themes into the centre’s design. Those themes include the four sacred elements of nature, fire, earth, water and air — which represents the connection of all life. The home fire, which represents community connection. Indigenous languages throughout the centre represent that there is a space for everyone. The Tipi and Metis cabin to represent the respect for traditional territories and sacred sites. And lastly, river motifs which represent the meeting point of the bow and elbow rivers and its historical significance as a traditional gathering place.

Further information about the Scotia Place Event Centre is available in the Scotia Place Design Brief released by the City of Calgary.