Downtown Real Estate

[Gronk!]

I've heard there's been a lot of progress being made on the former remand centre site becoming the spot for a brand new courthouse. Not sure how much merit there is in that, but I've been hearing it through the grapevine....

Hopefully they can repurpose the current Law Courts building into an extension of the AGA plus a live music venue.

 

[archited]

Chancery Hall has been "remade" a number of times over the years -- I think it might well be in its end-of-life throes (never was that well designed in the first place) and probably would face the demolition wrecking ball rather than a very, very expensive makeover to convert it to residential. On the other hand with a clean slate it would be great to see AGA expand southward across the street (eliminating part of the street for a half block from Century Place westward. Century Place is a different matter -- a more substantial building -- with a little imagination and consumption of the remainder of the half block not dedicated to AGA it could become a great addition for the Courthouse complex with the existing courthouse retrofitted (minor job in the large scheme of things) to serve only criminal justice and the new Family Courthouse (talked about recently) picking up the south end of the existing courthouse site, the intervening street and the tower all redesigned to house a very imaginative new courthouse dedicated solely to Family Law -- that with a major street-facing (97th Street) restaurant with a public entry on the street.separate from the entrance to the family court but also with access from the court lobby. The space between the AGA expansion and the new Family Courthouse could be an atrium enclosed space for a sculpture garden. The Century tower could then house court administration offices, judges chambers, and other non-courtroom functions. The new restaurant would face George Broumas' Oil Lamp restaurant across 97th Street. It would be a great project to hand over to an architectural office like GEC or to Doug Cardinal -- Doug on the AGA addition and GEC on the courthouse..

 

[David A]

Makes a lot of sense, but man o man those will be hard to backfill unless converted. I recall looking at Chancery about 10yrs ago for a previous employer and it was going to be very hard to do.

I doubt the Government of Alberta would want to take on the headaches of dealing with older buildings and all the work that would entail to bring them up to speed.

It is probably easier and no more expensive for them to build something new on a site nearby. Fortunately in this case, there are at least a couple good possibilities.

 

[archited]

A lot cheaper to retrofit the Century Building for offices for court functions than building new -- by a lot of $$$, Provincial Government or otherwise -- and the new family court would be built on undeveloped land. The building that can't be saved or repurposed is Chancery Hall.

 

[Glenco]

A lot cheaper to retrofit the Century Building for offices for court functions than building new -- by a lot of $$$, Provincial Government or otherwise -- and the new family court would be built on undeveloped land. The building that can't be saved or repurposed is Chancery Hall.

Wasn’t Century Tower refurbished a couple of years ago?