Living at Colours, Calgary

The Atlas

The building tells you its name on the way in. Two storeys of glass panel artwork sit on the second and third levels, a red wall runs alongside, and that is where the title came from before anybody lived here. Inside, the concrete is the finish and the wall is glass from the floor up, so the weather arrives in the room whether or not you asked for it. Thirteenth Avenue runs west from the door to a park with a sandstone library on it, and that walk is the one residents describe first.

Grounds

Colours stands at 135 13 Avenue SW, on the Victoria Park side of the Beltline, a block and a half north of Chocolate. Battistella Developments built both and grouped them under the name First Street Village, and this is the second of the two and the taller. Three retail condominium spaces hold the ground floor, so the base of the tower carries doors onto the sidewalk.

Thirteenth Avenue is the axis. West, it runs to Central Memorial Park with the 1912 sandstone library on the north edge, and past the park it reaches Lougheed House and its terraced gardens. North, 1 Street SW climbs toward the office grid, and the 7 Avenue CTrain platforms sit five blocks up at the top of the district. Southeast, the Victoria Park and Stampede station on the Red Line runs toward Stampede Park. Seventeenth Avenue SW is four blocks south, which is far enough that the noise of the strip stays on the strip and near enough to walk to for dinner.

Homes

Twenty-three storeys, finished in 2009. That is four storeys taller than Chocolate and three years later, and the interior programme follows it closely. Floor-to-ceiling glass walls, polished concrete, open plans, and industrial-style finishes throughout. The same developer carried the same vocabulary on to INK in East Village and Lido in Kensington, so a person who has stood in one of these buildings recognises the next one on sight.

Air conditioning is centralised, which is a thing to know about a glass tower in a city that runs thirty degrees in July and thirty below in January. Parking stalls are titled. The unit count for the building is not published on any source we could find, so we are naming the storey count and stopping there, and the exact mix comes off the condominium documents in the same conversation as the reserve fund study.

One position is published and it separates this building from several around it. As of August 2026 the corporation allows short-term rentals. That changes who your neighbours are on a given weekend, and it changes what an investor can do with a home here. Confirm the current position with the corporation before writing an offer, because a bylaw vote can move it.

Everyday

The daily list runs on two streets. Thirteenth Avenue handles the westward errands, the park, the library, and the walk that gets longer in the spring because you keep going. First Street handles the northward ones, meaning work for a good number of the people who live here, and the walk into the office towers is short enough that a second vehicle stops earning its stall. Groceries and dinner sit inside a few blocks in three directions.

Winter is where a tower earns its keep. Parking is below grade and the elevators run to a warm lobby, so nothing in the daily list needs a windshield scraped. Summer moves the building onto its fourth floor, where the common patio is planted, and moves the neighbourhood onto 17 Avenue. Stampede week arrives whether or not you participate, and living four blocks from the grounds means you learn how those ten days run, quickly.

Amenities

The fourth floor carries a common patio planted with foliage and landscaping, which is the building's outdoor room and the reason the fourth floor is the floor people mention.

Fifteen mountain bikes sit in the building for residents to borrow. That is a specific number of actual bicycles rather than a rack, and alongside it a car share programme runs from the building, so a household here can reach two wheels or four without owning either. Recycling is handled on site through building bins.

Parking is titled. We could find no published guest suite, no published fitness room, and no published concierge for this building, and that absence changes what a viewing should be asking about, because the amenity list here is short and deliberate. Pet rules come off the bylaws.

Edges

Victoria Park holds this corner, and it is the half of the Beltline that runs toward the Stampede grounds and the Elbow rather than toward 17 Avenue and the residential blocks. North the district ends at the office towers, and the change is abrupt, one street of apartments and then a street of lobbies. West the park closes it. South, 17 Avenue draws the line that everybody uses to describe where they live. Beltline is one City community carrying two halves that do not behave alike, and we separate them on the community page.

The Colours Edit

Where to start. Hours move, so check before you go.

Memorial Park Library
1221 2 Street SW, west along 13 Avenue. Opened in 1912, the first public library in Alberta, two storeys of sandstone in the middle of a park.

Last Best Brewing & Distilling
607 11 Avenue SW. Beer and spirits made on the premises since 2015.

Native Tongues Taqueria
235 12 Avenue SW. Tacos off a charcoal grill, one block north and one west.

Ten Foot Henry
1209 1 Street SW. Vegetable-forward and open every day, one block up the building's own street.

We keep the listings on the building page, updated as the market moves. Start with Colours condos for sale.