White: Making Calgary a better place to play

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Over the summer, I was impressed by the park improvements happening across Calgary. In particular, two unique park developments on the east side of the Deerfoot Trail — The Martin Family Legacy Garden and the Martin Family Pump Track and Skatepark — both thanks to the Martin Family and Parks Foundation Calgary.

In the downtown, the city opened a green space in Eau Claire along the river for soccer camps and converted the decommissioned helicopter pad into a basketball court. As well, Parks Foundation announced a former city surface parking lot in Downtown West was being converted into a mini soccer field.

A big thanks Joanne and Greg Martin who made a major donation to Parks Foundation Calgary that resulted in Calgary’s first combined pump track and skatepark in the George Moss Park in Ogden and Canada’s first dementia-inclusive park in Southview Park in Dover (other funders included City of Calgary, Alberta government, Flames Foundation and other private donors).

I recently spent several hours exploring both parks and their new additions. I had never heard of George Moss Park before and was pleasantly surprised with what I found. Not only is there the new pump track and skatepark but also beautiful baseball diamonds, pickleball and basketball courts, as well as a playground. I love the multiple uses and immediately thought this should be a model for redevelopment of other large community parks.

I was also impressed to find the Mustard Seed has built an attractive new affordable housing building (note: affordable housing doesn’t necessarily mean ugly design) next to the park with charming little café on the ground level — Brian’s Café. What a perfect site for a small apartment block! And what a great idea to have a café next to a park!

While in the area, I wandered some of the nearby streets and couldn’t help but wonder if Ogden is the next Sunnyside. There were many funky small homes, that reminded me of the cottage homes in Sunnyside. Is Ogden ripe for infill development? There are few already.

As we were driving to the Southview Park, we drove past the Green Line LRT construction, which made me wonder if the Green Line could do for Ogden what the northwest leg did for Sunnyside and Hillhurst?

And enroute to Southview Park, we stumbled upon Valleyview Park and had to stop for a look. If you cross the road, you are rewarded with a spectacular view of downtown, Bow River Valley and the Rockies. As for Valleyview Park itself, a unique feature is huge area dedicated to beach volleyball courts — who knew? There is also new playground and lovely water feature.

Finally, we made it to the dementia-inclusive park, strategically located next to Bethany Riverview facility that is home for more than 200 residents with complex dementia, as well as the Greater Forest Lawn 55-Plus Society building.

The Martin Family Legacy Garden has three short circular routes to walk (red, yellow and purple), a playground area for visiting young children accompanying relatives with dementia and lots of places to sit, including some adult swings. There are several animal sculptures in the garden and bird houses to create interest and conversation starters as you walk by.

As part of the city’s effort to evolve Calgary’s downtown into a better place to live, they are creating more places for the those living downtown to play. (Think live, play, work; not work, live, play!)

This past August, the former helicopter pad next to the Peace Bridge was converted into a funky basketball court with a colourful, cartoon-like circular mural by Montreal-based Marc-Olivier Lamthe. The pad, decommissioned years ago, has finally been repurposed into something that will make the Eau Claire community a more attractive spot for young people to live and play. There are also basketball courts at Century Gardens just five blocks away and another at Cowboy Park (formerly Millennium Park), so if you like basketball, the west end of downtown is the place to live.

Calgary’s Cavalry FC and Calgary Wild FC, in partnership with the City of Calgary, Calgary Minor Soccer Association and Centre for Newcomers collaborated to provide free soccer camps on Sunday mornings for youth along the Bow River pathway at Eau Claire. It was great to see how an unused green space became a fun place for young families to play downtown.

Kickstart Commons, a new mini soccer pitch located on the 900 block of 8th Avenue S.W., is part of a comprehensive downtown strategy to not only make Downtown West an attractive place to live for families, but to also enhance 8th Avenue as an attractive pedestrian street from Mewata Armory to Olympic Plaza.

Calgary is very fortunate to have the Parks Foundation Calgary, formed in 1985 by Terry Hawitt, Norm Harburn, and Tom Walsh, with the goal to develop, enhance and preserve green and recreational spaces across the city. Over the past 40 years, the foundation has invested more than $250 million into new parks and playgrounds thanks to the generosity of Calgary philanthropists like the Martin Family.

Livable cities have a diversity of parks across the entire city. Calgary is blessed with more than 5,500 parks and green spaces, making it one of the most livable cities in the world.