It used to be Calgary’s "It" shopping stroll, but on a sunny weekday afternoon these days you’re less likely to see 17th Avenue S.W. denizens clutching boutique bags.
Their fingers are more often curled around to-go coffee cups, poutine containers or pint glasses served on the avenue’s many patios.
"If I’m doing anything here, it’s eating or strolling. I don’t ever shop here, really," Matt Arter says as he enjoys a cupcake in Tomkins Square.
He needs a friend’s prompting to recall his fondness for Blame Betty, the clothier across the avenue.
The avenue’s growing status as a foodie and quaffer paradise will only accelerate in coming months: a pub, chickenwing spot, Italian restaurant, a second Italian restaurant and a coffeehouse will fill in the respective storefront holes left by a dollar store, adults-only shop, video store, home decor shop and lingerie store.
A beer hall is moving onto the corner where a wine store used to be, while another wine store replaced Megatunes.
Owners expect many more fashion-to-food changeovers to come, as vacated retail storefronts increase along with the rents.
The city, in a bid to dull 17th’s shift away from amethyst necklaces to alcoholic nectars – and from more daytime activity to nightlife – has proposed an unprecedented move: a cap on licensed restaurants or bars on any one avenue block.
While an array of people argue against city planners so heavily intervening into the free market, the biggest supporters for the policy change are actually the avenue’s business owners.
The Uptown 17th Business Revitalization Zone first alerted the city in 2008 about its loss of bookstores, galleries and other "entrepreneurial" shops that defined the street’s personality.
That was after the 2004 Calgary Flames playoff drive gave it the "Red Mile" cred, but before recent jumps in business rent and the easing of city rules for Beltline businesses to provide parking.
Uptown BRZ’s executive director fears the lack of daytime vibrancy and the evening glut creating a repeat of the partymad Electric Avenue on 11th in the 1980s.
"By default, we seem to be becoming the entertainment district," Barb Stein says.
"If this is the only way the city can see fit to make this stop happening, then we’re all for it."
The city’s Beltline Area Redevelopment Plan already aims to block future Electric Avenues: it discourages "drinking establishments" taking over more than half the street frontage on any block on 17th’s north side.
The city is consulting on whether to expand that to both sides of the street, and also add "licensed restaurants" -where noodles or steak, not wine or beer, are the main draw -into "clustering policy" limits.
Only the southern block with Moxie’s at 12th Street and Ship and Anchor’s row near 4th Street currently hit that limit, according to city data.
Existing businesses or permits would be fine, but new development permits would be discouraged, city planner Matt Rockley explained.
"If they do that, there’s just going to be a bunch of empty spaces around here," said David Price, a waiter who plans to soon move near the strip.
"If restaurants and bars are what’s setting up and thriving, that’s what people want," said Arter, a Beltline resident.
But for retailers already emptying out spaces along 17th, the policy would be welcome.
As she awaited trucks to haul the last boxes away from the bankrupted apparel store Current this week, Brandie Fontaine recalled how she and a colleague both predict the site’s inevitable future as a restaurant.
"Because that’s what dominates this section of 17th Avenue. That seems to be where success lies, both for the landlord or for the business." said Fontaine, the small chain’s Vancouver-based operations manager.
"If you’re operating regular business hours, it’s a tough neighbourhood."
All the Current stores are going under, but Calgary’s was first to close. It had the highest rents – double that of Current’s flagship shop on Vancouver’s bustling South Granville, Fontaine said.
"I think they’re extremely high for the level of traffic in the neighbourhood," she said. "Because with it being predominantly restaurants, your traffic is in the evening."
Stein said high rents were $28 per square foot in the late 1990s. Now, its "$84 on some corners."
The Beltline Community Association opposes the policy change -south Mission’s restaurant row has been celebrated, its president Rob Taylor notes -while adjacent neighbourhood groups in Mount Royal and Cliff Bungalow/Mission support it, Rockley said.
Ald. John Mar plans to request city funding for a "retail strategy" to encourage new businesses on the avenue, similar to one that helped re-energize downtown shopping.
"It’s not working right now," he said of the mix.
Rob Walker, a vice-president with leasing giant Colliers International, decried the "social engineering" plan he warned could repel the international and national businesses interested in moving to 17th.
"It’s the existing bars and restaurants. They want to be able to insulate themselves from competition," said Walker.
Two of his firm’s latest new tenants are opening new bars within 150 metres of each other -the dollar store and porn shop they’re replacing don’t belong on a fashionable urban street, he reasons.
The BRZ is chaired by Kerri Burnside, a director with Melrose Cafe and Bar, who declined to comment.
Wayne Leong, who owns Melrose (the street’s biggest bar-eatery) said he’s not overly familiar with the city proposal, but likes the idea.
"There’s a fine balance, and I’m not the person to establish that," he said.
Colliers is also leasing spaces in a major development set to redefine 17th – Hanson Square, a multi-storey building anchored by Best Buy.
Some neighbouring owners bemoan the entry of big box into their realm, but Stein welcomes the project as a potential "saviour" for the retail district.
Near the strip’s 14th Street junction, Walls Alive is surrounded by bars, and owner Greg Stebbe isn’t fond of the morning-time litter and body fluids on his sidewalk or in the flower bed.
He leans toward favouring the policy change, but also notes that the condo boom in Beltline will naturally increase retail demand on 17th.
Calgary Herald
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