City's heritage hangs in balance

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Calgary Sun

Tue, July 22, 2008

City's heritage hangs in balance
UPDATED: 2008-07-22 02:42:16 MST



By RICKY LEONG

Construction cranes dot Calgary's skyline, a testament to the lack of office space in this city and developers' desire to fill that pressing need.

Although the demolition rate for historic buildings doesn't seem as alarming as it was decades ago, we continue to lose buildings of historic value to new developments.

The latest victim in this saga is Curtis Block, a century-old building which stood at 12 Ave. and Macleod Tr., near the Stampede grounds.

Last year, Calgary lost Penny Lane Mall for a high-rise development.

Bob van Wegen, a board member of the Calgary Heritage Initiative, seemed upbeat about future preservation possibilities, but acknowledged the fight to preserve our architectural history isn't easy.

"People certainly weren't happy about Penny Lane and St. Mary's Girl School," Wegen said, noting two of Calgary's recent heritage losses.

"Conversely, they've been delighted in the EnCana project and Arriva. I think things are gradually changing for the better."

EnCana's Bow building and the Arriva condos in Victoria Park are examples of Calgary's heritage being integrated into new structures.

Wegen gave the city credit for paying more attention to heritage matters in relation to development. "Council, I think, has been much more support of heritage in recent years," he said. "The heritage planning staff is much larger than it was a few years ago. The city is designating more buildings as heritage sites. There's a lot of positive activity going on."

One of the city's development companies would like to challenge the idea Calgary is a place where the wrecking ball rules. Heritage buildings can be an asset in the development of new buildings, said Eileen Stan, vice-president of development for Torode. "We look for opportunities to incorporate buildings in new developments," she said. "We renovated the Victoria Park sandstone school. We also saved the Bungalow school."

Torode owns the site of the recently felled Curtis Block. Although the building bit the dust, it wasn't for lack of trying to preserve it, Stan said.

From the building's poor condition to development constraints, there were a multitude of reasons making it infeasible to preserve the building, she said.

Weger of Calgary Heritage noted a combination of road-widening and flood-plain requirements made preserving Curtis Block impractical.

"Heritage lost out to a transportation requirement that, in our view, wasn't a good trade," he said. "We've traded in 100 years of history for four feet of sidewalk."

All this even though Curtis Block had a heritage designation from the city. It surprised me to learn many structures aren't protected from demolition or mutilation. Among them are the city's sandstone schools, the Barron Building (home of the Uptown theatre), the planetarium and the Kerby Centre. There have also been concerns about Stanley House, childhood home of George Stanley, the man who designed the Canadian flag. What sobering information.

"We're losing a lot of houses ... in older communities. A lot of neighbourhoods are having their charachter assaulted by new development," Weger said. "Most buildings in the warehouse district are on the heritage inventory but aren't designated for protection."

At least there are enticements for developers to preserve our history. A kind of density trade is one such tool, where a developer gets credit on another site for preserving a historic property.

Iconic Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell bemoaned paving paradise to put up parking lots and reminded us we don't know what we have till it's gone.

As we come up on Historic Calgary Week this weekend, Mitchell's message shouldn't be lost on us.