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Calgary City News Blog: CMLC unveils winning St. Patrick’s bridge design

Monday, March 22, 2010

CMLC unveils winning St. Patrick’s bridge design

The new St. Patrick’s bridge design winner has been announced.

It is a lower profile, arched structure that respects the location and aesthetics of St. Patrick’s Island and the Bow River according to The Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC) which is mandated by The City of Calgary to implement and execute the Rivers District Community Revitalization Plan.

The winning design team is RFR, from Paris, France and Calgary’s Halsall Associates Limited.

“It was a difficult decision,” said Chris Ollenberger, President and CEO of CMLC. “All of the three finalists were engaging in their public presentations and their final submissions reflected their passion for the project. The Board of Directors was very impressed with the sensibility, aesthetics and thematic approach taken by RFR Halsall, but recognized that any one of the three final designs would have been a wonderful addition to Calgary.”

CMLC considered the opinions of Calgarians expressed through more than two thousand comments on the CMLC website and at public presentations last month, as well as listened to the advice of its Advisory Committee and technical experts to ultimately select the RFR Halsall team.

“We’re elated,” said John Ford, an engineer with Halsall Associates Limited in Calgary. “We’re very excited to be part of East Village. We tried to capture what the community wanted and to reflect the unique characteristics of this location.”

Ollenberger said the bridge’s continuous arches emulating a stone skipping across the Bow River resonated with Calgarians. He noted that others saw rolling foothills or the Chinook arch in the profile of the RFR Halsall bridge design.

“It’s that simplicity we were shooting for,” said Ford. “This is validation that our design was understood and really worked.”

The new bridge will feature animated lighting, a visual highlight that makes it an interactive structure. The bridge will replace the existing one, which only partially crosses the river near the west end of St. Patrick’s Island, and will link the island with East Village to the south and Bridgeland to the north.

With the winning concept chosen, detailed design work will begin as well as public consultation on the rejuvenation of St. Patrick’s Island.

CMLC is working towards developing the East Village into a vibrant community that is integrated with the downtown core.

To learn more about the winning bridge design and other East Village redevelopment projects, visit www.calgarymlc.ca.

***Images courtesy of CMLC
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Posted by Brad Linn on Monday, March 22, 2010
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14 comments:

  1. Please share budget details or URL's with citizens.
    Why did Banff budget $1.1M for a pedestrian bridge across the Bow?
    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Paul,

    Please refer to CMLC for St. Patrick's Bridge information.

    Thanks for your interest.
    ReplyDelete
  3. This is a waste of money
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  4. Now you can get from St.Patricks island to Memorial Dr. How do you get across Memorial Dr.?
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  5. This will improve the pedestrian connectivity of Inglewood, Ramsey, Beltline, Crescent Heights, Bridgeland, East Village and the Central Business District. My feet are my primary mode of transportation between my residence and my work place. I believe key pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure provides an attractive cost/benefit and is an important part of the overall Calgary transportation infrastructure picture.
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  6. The design is beautiful. The arches almost looks like the path of a stone skipping on water! Magnificent!
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  7. I cannot believe they would build a silly bridge instead of extending the LRT into the Foothills Industrial. What would help out Calgarians more!!!! I am sure if i had a chance to voice my opinion and it was listened too, we would have LRT service into the industrial area.
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  8. This will be a great addition to Calgary! I bike and walk along the river all the time, and will be using the bridge a lot. :)
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  9. Was the Mayor not just complaining about cuts in funding from the Province and that certain sustainability projects could be postponed or cut if the funding wasn't returned? Given that, shouldn't the City be looking at funding for these sustainablitiy projects rather than funding these idiotic and un-necessaary foot bridges? We're talking about $75 million between the 2 bridges, that pays for a lot of transportation, utility and emegency services for this uncontolled urban sprall of a city.
    As far as this particualr bridge is concerned, is there no Calgary or at least Canadian based firms that could come up with an equally pleasing design? Is there a reason that in this time of economic unease that we're flushing our money our of the country?
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  10. "I am sure if i had a chance to voice my opinion and it was listened too, we would have..."

    Cake for supper every night?
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  11. I'm glad to see I will now be able to cross the Bow River at this location at night without having the traverse the dark & often not-deserted St. Patrick's Island. Now, how about a ped overpass over Memorial Drive to complete the connection to Bridgeland/Riverside?

    The bridge does still need a connection to St. Patrick's Island for daytime picnickers etc. I don't see that connection in any of the pictures accompanying this news story.
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  12. This is from Chris Ollenberger, President and CEO of CMLC, in response to Anonymous comment.

    An open competition was held for the St. Patrick’s Island Bridge which welcomed any Canadian firm that wished to enter, and in fact the winning bridge is a partnership with Halsall Associates. Halsall Associates is a Canadian company with local offices here in Calgary that worked on this bridge design. The actual budget of both bridges is less than $50M.

    The St. Patrick’s Island Bridge is not funded by the general Calgary taxpayer, it is being paid for by CMLC out of revenue earned through development of East Village and other areas in the Rivers District.

    Thanks,
    Chris
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  13. Great looking bridge and great idea.

    I also share Stewart's sentiment that a bike/pedestrian Memorial Drive overpass would be an ideal extension to this project.
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  14. Good looking bridge and good to hear a local company is involved. I live in Sunnyside and am welcoming the two new footbridges crossing the river. I'm also happy to see some thought has been put into the design, rather than some ugly old thing. All in all, good job!
    ReplyDelete

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