Design for new Arts Common building revealed, first phase of revamp

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Construction of the three-level building, which will be located on the L-shaped lot adjacent to Olympic Plaza, will begin in the fall and is expected to be completed by the 2028-29 season.

Published Apr 04, 2024  •  Last updated 17 hours ago  •  3 minute read

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Designs for a new downtown building that will feature two new theatres were revealed on Thursday, giving the public an early glimpse of what the first phase of a $660-million transformation of Arts Commons will look like.

Construction of the 162,000-square-foot, three-level building, to be located on the L-shaped lot that wraps around Teatro restaurant and adjacent to Olympic Plaza, will begin in the fall and is expected to be complete by the 2028-29 season.

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Olympic Plaza will be boarded up and programming will be paused by the end of 2024. The plan is to have the redesigned plaza reopen at the same time the new building opens.

The project will cost $270 million and is funded by the City of Calgary and Calgary Municipal Land Corp.’s community revitalization levy.

The architectural design was revealed at the Jack Singer Concert Hall on Thursday morning by members of the CMLC team, Arts Commons, Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek and Kevin Bridgeman of KPMG, who was part of a design team that also includes Calgary’s Hindle Architects and Arizona/Calgary-based Tawa Architecture.

It will be the largest arts-focused infrastructure project currently underway in Canada, and will include a transformation of Olympic Plaza and modernizing the existing Arts Commons facilities. All will be part of the new Arts Commons campus.

The entire transformation is expected to be done by 2030, says Alex Sarian, president and CEO of Arts Commons. On March 22, the Alberta government committed $103 million to the entire expansion project. Sixty-five per cent of the $660-million cost has been raised.

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The new building and its two theatres will boost Arts Commons’ seating capacity by 45 per cent. Arts Commons is currently home to six resident companies — including the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, One Yellow Rabbit and Theatre Calgary — and houses five theatres alongside the Jack Singer. As part of the modernization of that building, The Big Secret Theatre and the Motel Theatre will likely be decommissioned.

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‘Different opportunities for different companies to flex in different directions’

“Part of what we’re trying to do here is create an ecosystem where it’s a very conscious choice that we have diversity of venue sizes,” said Sarian.

“We have everything from a 200-seat studio to an 1,800-seat Jack Singer Concert Hall, and now truly everything in between. That alone provides different opportunities for different companies to flex in different directions. It might mean a company like Theatre Calgary might want to do something that is super intimate, or it might mean that a company that is growing wants to start punching above its weight. The fact that we are also creating opportunities for cultural experiences in public lobbies, in the plaza, it means we can now start welcoming into Arts Commons ecosystem a lot of the folks that may not be ready to be part of a venue but want to be a part of this ecosystem, this community.”

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The new building will feature a curving staircase and “gathering circle” in the southeast corner of the site.

“It is a point of connectivity within the city, as well,” says Bridgeman. “It’s on axis with your city hall, it’s on Stephen Avenue, it’s adjacent to the plaza.”

The new 1,000-seat theatre will be able to alter the floor layouts to accommodate different types of productions. The new 200-seat studio theatre will feature retractable platform seating and an opening out to the plaza.

The $660-million cost includes a $50-million endowment fund for Arts Commons, $270 million for the new building and $270 million to modernize the existing Arts Commons building, which is still in the design stages and will require additional funding to be raised. The transformation of Olympic Plaza is expected to cost $70 million, for which the city has already set aside $40 million in its 2023-2026 budget for downtown revitalization.

The project will increase Arts Commons seating capacity but is also a response to the growing arts community within the city, Sarian said.

“What we strive to do is create an environment within which anything is possible,” said Sarian. “That’s not really up to us sometimes, it’s up to the creative geniuses of the resident companies or the artists that we haven’t even met yet. When we talk and look at this design and think about flexibility, but also being deeply intentional about being inclusive and welcoming, that to me is really exciting because I don’t know what will happen in these spaces. We have an artist community that is growing inside and outside of us that will be able to inform how the space is brought to life.”

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