Living at The Concord, Calgary

The Atlas

In December the water feature in the courtyard freezes and somebody is out there on skates before dinner. That is the detail people remember about this address, and it is downstream of a much less romantic one, which is that the ground here is wet and the building was engineered around it. Two towers with a courtyard between them, and the Bow twenty steps north. You will use the pathway more than the parkade.

Grounds

The Concord stands on 1 Avenue SW at 6 Street, on the river side of Eau Claire. Civic addresses on record read 700 and 738 1 Avenue SW and the two do not reconcile from the outside. Eau Claire runs from the Bow River south to 4 Avenue on ground reclaimed from industry, and it takes its name from the Eau Claire Lumber Company, a sawmill moved north out of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, staffed largely by Norwegian mill workers, on a site chosen in 1886 for its access to timber.

Prince's Island Park sits north across a channel of the Bow, 20 hectares of island that came to the city in 1947 from the Prince family. It carries the Calgary Folk Music Festival, Shakespeare in the Park, Canada Day and Carifest through the summer, so the address hears the folk festival across its July weekend whether or not anybody bought a ticket. The Bow River pathway runs the bank. West along it the Peace Bridge crosses to Sunnyside, 130.6 metres of Santiago Calatrava steel open since March 24 2012.

Homes

The project runs as a pair. The east tower holds 113 homes across 17 storeys and the west tower holds 105 across 14, which comes to 218 over four levels of parking underground. Concord Pacific developed it. Arthur Erickson designed it with Nick Milkovich Architects and Centreville Construction built it.

The parking is where the hard problem sat. The site carries a very high water table and lies inside a flood zone, so the structure rests on a raft slab a metre and a half thick and the concrete itself was specified to hold water out. A crystalline admixture runs through the below-grade walls and the slab, swelling waterstop treatment seals the construction joints, and an external membrane went on over the top of all of it as a second line. Four levels of parkade under a flood plain is the sort of decision that never appears in a brochure and decides how the building ages.

The developer states that the floor slabs are poured 43 percent thicker than standard construction and that the walls between homes are backed with four inches of concrete block. Both figures are the developer's own and are recorded here as such. What a resident hears, or does not hear, is the test of them.

Everyday

You are on the edge of downtown and on the edge of the river at the same time, which is a combination this city has in very few places. The office core is a walk south. The pathway north carries a bike to Bowness in an afternoon or to the zoo in twenty minutes. Chinatown is east past 4 Street with its groceries and its bakeries. The one thing this district lost is its market. Eau Claire Market closed on May 31 2024 and was demolished later that year, so the daily shop moved out to Chinatown and the towers along 1 Street, and the ground where the market stood is between uses. Winter narrows the walk and the courtyard rink takes over, and the pathway stays plowed.

Amenities

A concierge desk and security run around the clock. The fitness centre carries a yoga room. A social lounge holds a catering kitchen and a bar for the nights that need a room bigger than a suite. Guest suites are kept for visitors. Bicycle storage and assigned storage lockers come with the homes.

The parkade does more than park cars. Visitor stalls sit down there alongside a touchless car wash, and the private garages are enclosed and sized from two cars up to four, which is a specification you find in very few buildings in this city and which explains a good deal about who this project was drawn for. In winter the central water feature in the courtyard becomes a private skating rink, and it is the amenity everybody mentions first.

Edges

The Bow closes the north and the pathway runs along it, with Prince's Island offshore. Fourth Avenue draws the southern line where Eau Claire hands over to the downtown core and the office towers begin. East past 4 Street the ground runs to Chinatown and then to the confluence. West the bank carries on to the Peace Bridge and the West End. Every edge here is water, a park, a bridge or a district line, and none of them is a wall, so the address behaves like a river address that happens to sit a short walk from a bank tower. The wider map sits on the full neighbourhoods index.

The Concord Edit

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

Prince's Island Park
Twenty hectares across the channel, city-owned since 1947. Festivals through the summer and pathway the rest of the year.

The Bow River pathway and the Peace Bridge
The bank at your door, and Calatrava's red tube 130.6 metres across to Sunnyside since March 2012. Walk it at night when it is lit.

River Café
On Prince's Island itself, open seven days for lunch and dinner with weekend brunch from ten. Book it, then walk there.

Alforno Bakery and Café
222 7 Street SW, one block west. Bread and a counter, in a room that fills at eight in the morning.

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