Living at Pixel, Calgary

The Atlas

You give directions by the yellow cubes. Nobody in Kensington needs the street number once you say it, because a grid of yellow boxes stepping across an eight-storey face is the sort of thing a neighbourhood files away. Inside, the address is calmer than the outside suggests. Concrete floors and a balcony wired for a barbecue, under a roof that looks south over the river at the downtown towers. The train is a short walk east and you use it more than you expected to.

Grounds

Pixel stands at 235 9A Street NW, one street east of the 10 Street run. The City files the address in Sunnyside, and on the street everybody calls it Kensington, which is the standing confusion on this side of the river. Sunnyside runs from Centre Street west to 10 Street NW with McHugh Bluff above it and the Bow below. Hillhurst picks up at 10 Street and carries west to 18 Street. Kensington is the business revitalisation zone laid across both, and the two communities share one association, so the argument never has to be settled by anybody who lives here.

The ground falls toward the water. From the door it is three blocks south to the Bow River pathway, and the Peace Bridge lands on this bank, Santiago Calatrava's helical red tube open since March 2012. Riley Park sits northwest, twenty acres given to the city off Felix McHugh's original homestead by Ezra Riley. Downtown is one bridge away and reads as a skyline rather than as a commute.

Homes

Eight storeys, finished in 2014 by Battistella Developments. The developer's own record counts 98 homes, 81 flats and 17 townhome-style condos, against a building permit issued in April 2012 for 101. The City cleared the site under a demolition permit in September 2011 and the concrete work began the following April. Three levels of parking run underneath.

The facade is the thing people describe first. Yellow cubes push out of a plain mid-rise grid, and the lobby carries a stained glass feature with coloured light set into it, so the building declares itself at the sidewalk and then behaves indoors. The suites run small to medium and lean toward one household rather than several. Concrete floors and quartz counters, and a balcony carrying both gas and an electrical outlet, which is the small specification that decides whether you cook out there in June. The townhomes at grade take their own doors onto the street, which keeps the block reading as houses at eye level and a building above.

Everyday

Sunnyside station opened on the Red Line in 1987 and sits a short walk east, one stop from downtown. That is the structural reason a household at this address can run one car and never revisit the decision. The 10 Street shops start a block over and run north to Kensington Road, carrying coffee, restaurants, a bookshop and the Plaza Theatre at the top of the run. Groceries are on foot. The river handles the calendar. The pathway carries a bike downtown in minutes and out to Bowness in an afternoon, and in July the bank below McHugh Bluff fills with people who walked there. Winter shortens the list to the indoor half of 10 Street, and the walk is short enough that it does not stop you going.

Amenities

The roof is the shared room. A communal garden and patio run up there with a gas fireplace, facing south over the river at the downtown towers, which is the view the suites on the north side do not get and the roof gives back. Bicycle storage is indoors. Parking and storage lockers are both titled and both underneath. Security runs around the clock, with carbon-dioxide detectors through the parkade.

The published list ends there, and we would rather say so than pad it. No gym, no guest suite, no concierge desk and no car wash bay appears in any record we can check. A mid-rise of 98 homes was not drawn around an amenity floor, and the trade is a roof with a river view against a fitness room shared by the whole building. On this site that trade reads as the right one, because the pathway at the bottom of the hill is the gym.

Edges

The Bow closes the south with the pathway on it. McHugh Bluff climbs behind to the north, and Crescent Heights sits above the rim. Ten Street draws the western line into Hillhurst, and Centre Street closes the east where Sunnyside runs out. Each edge is something you can stand on. Across the river the West End and the downtown core answer with glass, reached on foot over the Peace Bridge. Upstream, Prince's Island Park sits in the channel. The wider map sits on the full neighbourhoods index.

The Pixel Edit

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

The Bow River pathway and the Peace Bridge
Three blocks south. The bridge has been open since March 2012 and it is still the fastest way into the West End on foot.

Riley Park
Twenty acres northwest, given to the city off the old McHugh homestead. Room to put a blanket down and lose an afternoon.

Kensington Wine Market
1257 Kensington Road NW. Scotch and wine, with a tasting calendar that fills up, in a shop that has held this corner of Kensington Road for years.

The Kensington Pub
207 10A Street NW, one block over. A small room on a side street, and the sort of place you end up in without having planned it.

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