St. Andrews Heights

The Atlas

St. Andrews Heights has a period in its name because a sign had to be ordered. The community was still arguing about the punctuation when the hall needed lettering, somebody made the call, and the period has been there ever since. That is a fair introduction to the place, and the one we give. It sits on a hilltop above the Bow, named for a golf course that closed in 1945, eight years before the first house went in.

Grounds

The community holds the top of the hill between the Trans-Canada and the Bow River, with Crowchild Trail on the east and 29 Street on the west. Everything here is a question of elevation. The southern streets follow an escarpment that falls to the river, so a house on Toronto Crescent looks across the valley at the far bank, and the City holds that slope as park rather than letting anything be built on it. Foothills Medical Centre fills the northwestern corner and the university sits past it. McMahon Stadium and the Foothills Athletic Park close the northeast. Between those institutions there is a compact residential grid where a hall and a rink share 13 Avenue with a sledding hill, and the ratio of ordinary neighbourhood to very large public facility is what makes this address unusual.

A golf course sat up here first, named after the one in Scotland, and it closed in 1945. Construction of the subdivision began in 1953 on the ground it left, which means the community is named for something none of its residents ever played. The land had been annexed in 1910 and waited four decades before that. Audrey Miklos wrote the community's history covering 1953 to 1978, and the association still hands it out. The name itself carries two puzzles and the association answers both plainly. There is no apostrophe because Scottish place names were founded before the punctuation was, and there is a period because the debate was still running when the hall sign had to be ordered and somebody made an executive decision. Neither has been revisited in seventy years, and we would not raise it.

Homes

Five hundred and thirty-five residential parcels in two clear waves. Two hundred and eighteen went up in the 1950s and sixty-two more in the 1960s. Then a second wave of 135 arrived in the 1970s, which is uncommon for an inner-city community and reflects apartment construction. Four hundred and five parcels sit in the low-density district and 134 in a low-rise multi-residential one, so so the split runs about three to one and it falls geographically, block by block.. Median lot size runs near 6,887 square feet. Eighty-four homes have been finished since 2010, a steady replacement rate that has not altered the street pattern at all. The escarpment streets are the ones that hold, because a lot with a river valley in front of it rarely comes down for a rebuild, which is our reading and the roll's. On Toronto Crescent there is a house from 1967 by the architect John Hondema, designed to take the weather the bluff throws at it, and the City's heritage inventory calls it a landmark. The interior blocks turn over faster and hand the buyer a shorter walk instead of a view.

Everyday

The hospital sets the rhythm and it runs around the clock. Foothills Medical Centre operates on the corner of this community, which means a share of the local traffic moves on shift change rather than at rush hour, and it means there is a transit station here that a community this size would never otherwise get. The University of Calgary's Health Sciences Library sits on Hospital Drive. The community association runs the hall on 13 Avenue with a rink, a skate room, tennis and basketball courts, a playground and a tobogganing hill with a public lot beside it. Karl Baker Off-Leash Park handles the dogs, and the City lists that off-leash ground as open and shared with West Hillhurst along the Parkdale hillside. Groceries and the errand run point down the hill into Parkdale or east along 16 Avenue. Winter is the season this community is built for, in our view, and the hill is the argument. There is a hill, and there is a rink at the bottom of it. The escarpment path holds a valley view nobody has to drive to.

Edges

The Trans-Canada north, Crowchild Trail east, Toronto Crescent and the escarpment south, 29 Street west. Three roads and a cliff, and the cliff is what sets the character of the southern half. East across Crowchild, Hounsfield Heights and Briar Hill takes the next hilltop with a view of its own. West down the hill, Parkdale runs the flat along the river. The wider map sits on the full neighbourhoods index.

The St. Andrews Heights Edit

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

The escarpment above the Bow
The City holds the south slope as park. Walk to the top of Toronto Crescent and look.

Karl Baker Off-Leash Park
Open, and shared with the hillside below. The whole community's dog map in one field.

The tobogganing hill
Beside the community hall, with a public lot just east of it. Bring the sled and a thermos.

The rink on 13 Avenue
Outdoor, with a skate room attached, which is the detail that decides whether anyone actually goes.

We keep the listings on the neighbourhood page, updated as the market moves. Start with St. Andrews Heights homes for sale.