CentreCity

Torode adds more art to downtown streets

This announcement was first made a few weeks ago, but in all the preparations for the holidays, I imagine a lot of people missed it the first time around, including myself.

Torode recently announced two more public art pieces to be installed downtown that will once again raise the bar for public art in Calgary.

"Torode believes in Calgary and its people," says Robyn Murphy in a news release. "That's why it's investing in it with many exciting and cutting edge real estate developments and art projects."

International Business Opportunities for Calgary

A new Global Business Centre is being established in downtown Calgary with a mandate to increase the international trade activity in Southern Alberta. 

Alberta companies are punching below their weight in terms of exporting goods and services to international markets.  Given the slow down in the US economy, it is more important than ever to leverage access to new international markets.  That’s where Calgary Economic Development comes in with the development of the Neilson Block on 7th Avenue between the Hyatt Hotel and the North Building of the Calgary TELUS Convention Centre.

The building is currently being renovated to house the Global Business Centre, which will be a highly visible and accessible location for the business community to access services to expand their markets globally.

Success against Violent Crimes in Downtown Bars

In a recent Metro Calgary news article, the owner of several high profile bars and clubs in the city said Calgary’s Violent Crime Suppression Team was built to keep the bad guys out of bars, and so far it’s working very well.

Paul Vickers said since Calgary Police Service dedicated a specialized team to the city’s night time hot spots, he has already seen a huge difference: “I think this program has been a major deterrent to gangsters, drug dealers, bad guys, whatever you want to call them, from coming into bars,” Vickers said. “I say it’s already been a huge success.”

CentreCityTalk! wanted to find out more about the Violent Crime Suppression Team, so we interviewed one of the members of the Team, Constable Kelly Oberg.

Suspending the Cecil Hotel's Business Licence

Following an in-depth hearing that took place over six days, the Chief Licence Inspector has decided to immediately suspend the Cecil Hotel tavern business licence, citing tavern operations posed too much of a threat to public safety. The suspension takes place immediately and is with respect to the tavern portion of the operations; the hotel operations at 401 - 4 Ave. SE are not affected.

A free and family-friendly New Year’s Eve

Join us in the spirit of the holidays by gathering together family and friends to celebrate New Year’s Eve Calgary-style at Bright Night, a free event in Olympic Plaza hosted by The City of Calgary.

The evening kicks off December 31 at 6 p.m. with skating, video games on the big screen, silent movies, ball hockey, roving performers and lantern building. A kids countdown takes place at 9 p.m. and will feature a rooftop pyrotechnics show. The party continues with live music and dancing from 9 p.m. until the midnight countdown and pyrotechnics show.

New Streetscape for East Village

For the last few months, CMLC has been working with a number of City departments, especially Roads, to implement a completely new streetscape for the roads within East Village.  We have made solid progress on construction of 8th Avenue using the new pedestrian focussed model for East Village, and while shallow utilities construction delays and winter have forced us to put in some interim elements until spring, one can see some of the basic elements already on-site.

The new streetscape design includes narrower vehicle lanes, segregated parking bays, reduced on-street parking, traffic calming measures built in, raised intersections in key locations (8th Avenue and 5th Street SE is one of them) for pedestrain safety, new streetlighting design, wider sidewalks, and Calgary's first public realm use of an L-shaped interlocking paver to improve aesthetics and reduce lifecycle costs.  We will be releasing a video showing the new streetscape modeled on 8th Avenue SE here on CentreCity blog, but as a preliminary preview the image below is presented: