St. Patricks Island to be brought to life

  • 2013-03-17
Plans to make St. Patrick’s Island a recreational destination for Calgarians have been released.

The ideas include a 12.5 hectare space offering a boat launch, beach, picnic area and amphitheatre for summer use. During the winter the area will remain active with a skating pond and tobogganing hill.

The city could effectively use banner printing to draw attention to the plans as there will no doubt be a budgeted marketing push behind the transformation to get the word out to locals.

St. Patrick’s island sits across from where the Bow and Elbow rivers converge near the East Village and is currently degraded and underused. The intention is to create a great destination for Calgarians seeking a taste of the natural outdoors within the city limits.

The reinvention of the island will come with a significant budgetary expenditure of $45m with $25m of that being allocated to the construction of a pedestrian bridge that will connect the East Village and Memorial Drive.

The changes will be funded by a revitalization levy loan that will be recovered by property taxes on the downtown east end and East Village new development, which includes projects like the office tower ‘The Bow’.

The island will be closed with no access for the public during the anticipated 18 to 24 month construction phase.

There is an existing bridge connecting Fort Calgary to St. Patrick’s island but it does not connect to the northern side of the Bow River. The new bridge will replace this and will create a link between the East Village on the south side and Bridgeland to the north.