Central Memorial Park Grand Re-Opening

[Wentworth]

Originally Posted by LFRENCH

Does anyone have a picture of the park before the reno's? .

http://ww2.glenbow.org/search/archiv...OEH=ISO-8859-1

[mersar]

Well lets just say the park looks fantastic at night. Theres LED's in all the water features, plus the in-ground ones throughout add an interesting effect. They turned all the fountains off around 10 so I'll have to try to get some photos another night of it. The electricians actually are just leaving, they've been working all evening on getting everything working in the dark.

[Radley77]

Originally Posted by Wooster

Thanks for the pic. It's coming together nicely. Although I like the design of Memorial Park, with its intent to return the park more toward its original design, I'd like to see other new urban park spaces represent more the cutting edge in landscape architecture.

Radley, I'd have to disagree. Parks are fundamental to quality of life in high density urban environments. The problems of some of our urban parks have much more to do with poor design, poor integration with their surroundings and lack of active uses around them. Olympic Plaza may be a well funded park, but it too suffers a lot of design issues. It in fact is up for a re-design.

I like parks in theory, but in practicality there is a big gap between the ideal and what happens. The form of most urban parks easily lends itself to alternative functions, and with that in mind I think that building a park is one of the riskiest developments a city can undertake.

i.e. Could a soccer pitch with two nets which might have had a ton of use at only a fraction of the cost and perhaps a lot less negative crime implications be built instead?

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Radley77

i.e. Could a soccer pitch with two nets which might have had a ton of use at only a fraction of the cost and perhaps a lot less negative crime implications be built instead?

Given the history of this park I doubt the city wanted to just grass it all over and throw up some pitches. Just a block away (heck they almost touch) is the new Haultain park next to Union Square that has a soccer pitch on it.

I think this park was always going to be "fancier", I look forward to going down to it with the family and letting Littletime enjoy the water features and stuff.

Mersar, what building are you in? You may be in the same building that my dad rented many years ago when he was our age!

[MichaelS]

Originally Posted by Wooster

Thanks for the pic. It's coming together nicely. Although I like the design of Memorial Park, with its intent to return the park more toward its original design, I'd like to see other new urban park spaces represent more the cutting edge in landscape architecture.

Can you give an example of a park with this type of landscape architecture?

[mersar]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Mersar, what building are you in? You may be in the same building that my dad rented many years ago when he was our age!

I'm in Park Place.

It seems they are really pushing to get the park done. A semi just showed up with sod, and all the construction fence is being taken out right now. So theres a chance it won't look half finished for the opening. Theres also a camera crew out in the middle so I suspect the city is doing one of their video blogs about the reopening.

[Stang]

Originally Posted by Radley77

i.e. Could a soccer pitch with two nets which might have had a ton of use at only a fraction of the cost and perhaps a lot less negative crime implications be built instead?

As a soccer player, absolutely! The problem is, it would be a tough sell to the general public as the park would essentially become exclusive to a particular group of people. I know that you're just using soccer as an example, so I'll keep with it: parking would be a nightmare too, stray balls would piss people off on 12th Avenue, etc. But what a beautiful setting that would be to play a game in... Also, it would be very active from 6-10 PM, but during the day, it might even attract more unsavoury folk than a landscaped park. At least, with the landscaped park, you'll more people wondering, eating lunch, etc. as opposed to an open field.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by mersar

I'm in Park Place.

Yup, that's the same place.

[Aegis]

Originally Posted by mersar

I'm in Park Place.

It seems they are really pushing to get the park done. A semi just showed up with sod, and all the construction fence is being taken out right now. So theres a chance it won't look half finished for the opening. Theres also a camera crew out in the middle so I suspect the city is doing one of their video blogs about the reopening.

Well it's about time. It's been almost 2 years! The entire structure of EAP built to date has gone up in less time than this simple park has taken...

[mersar]

Well they got 80% of the missing sod in today, so its actually looking pretty good. Most of the construction fence is gone as well, so you can actually cross from 13th to 12th in the middle of the park.

[KONYS]

The workers are flying today. More sod is down and flowers are being planted all over. I walked by the other night and saw the fountains on and lit up. They look awesome.

[Wooster]

Looked like most of the pathways are still yet unpaved, is this correct?

[Bigtime]

Going to be swinging by the park tonight. I'll grab some pics.

[Calgarian]

Great to see this is finally nearing the finish line, I can't believe how long it's taken. I might have to detour through there on my way home from work.

[mersar]

Originally Posted by Wooster

Looked like most of the pathways are still yet unpaved, is this correct?

I believe the plan is for the inner pathways to be gravel, keeping with the "victorian" theme of the park. There outer paths running east-west (not the sidewalks along the road but the next set in) are concrete.

I missed the fountains last night due to a BPG meeting, so hopefully tonight they are on. I must say though that I love just hearing the sound from them from my balcony, it actually drowns out a lot of the traffic noise coming over the park from 12th.

[Radley77]

I rollerbladed within Memorial Park yesterday on the outside paths, there was only one elderly gawker there walking slowly. The different pathways will keep the higher speed cyclists and rollerblades away from the windier and gravelled central calming area and fountains. I like this feature.

Nice park; I will be interested to see how many users it attracts when it is finished, plus Devonian and Alberta Courts in the surrounding area which may end up spreading the demand for parks over the three areas. Haultain Park had a number of kids on the children's park, and every tennis court was full when I bladed by...

Also, went by Olympic Plaza. They have installed pink ramps, and there was about a dozen teenagers using it as a skateboard park and filming. I think it's good if there is some ad hoc programming to occur in some of the parks.

Others, like Hostel Park, Connaught Park and Sien Lok Park I think are some of the worst parks right now in City Centre.

[mersar]

Tons of people in the park tonight, including CPS who just kicked two people who were playing frisbee out, though looks like they sent them over to Haultain Park instead. Curious to see if the city is going to post the park similar to Century Gardens as a 'passive use only' area.

[Wooster]

^ I hate shit like that. I can understand like a full on game of Ultimate not being appropriate for a park like Memorial, but two people tossing a frisbee around is totally inocuous. Beltliners trying to enjoy the little park space that they have.

[mersar]

Yep. I'd even understand it if they were doing it on the newly laid sod, but they were on the older part of the park

[Calgarian]

I understand them moving things like frisbee to Haultain as Memorial seems to be more of a sitting / walking park, and Haultain is one block away. I drove by it last night and it looks pretty good, lots of colour and lights now, hopefully it gets good usage.