Arriva
Arriva stands at 433 11 Avenue SE, on the Warehouse District edge of Victoria Park inside the Beltline. The tower runs 34 storeys and 128 metres, and it holds 164 suites. First occupancy was November 30, 2007.
The building
BKDI Architects, now Zeidler Architecture, drew it for Torode Realty. RJC Engineers carried the structure, recorded in their own project file as a glass and concrete tower on a concrete podium. The curtain wall above is aqua-tinted glass, floor to ceiling. The podium below it is finished in brick and sandstone, which reads with the warehouse stock on the surrounding blocks rather than with the tower it holds up. Ground-floor retail runs along that podium and a three-storey parkade sits behind it.
Two heritage-designated schools share the site, Victoria School and Bungalow School. RJC's record notes that the schools, together with civil service vaults that had to be relocated, governed where the foundation walls and the shoring could go on a downtown lot with almost no clearance to its own lot lines.
Arriva was drawn as the first of three towers. The later phases were cancelled after the developer sought bankruptcy protection in 2009, so one tower is what the block received.
A concierge and security desk runs 24 hours. The fourth floor carries a residents’ lounge and a meeting room, with an outdoor courtyard off the same level, and there is a rooftop garden above. Guest suites are available for residents to book. The three-storey parkade is heated and its stalls are titled, and it carries bicycle storage alongside separate storage lockers.
Around it
Stampede Park is the neighbour to the south. The BMO Centre expansion opened there on June 5, 2024, and the Victoria Park/Stampede CTrain station at 1414 Macleod Trail SE was rebuilt as a street-level two-platform station in 2023. That platform has been on the Red Line since the original line opened in May 1981, and it also serves Scotiabank Saddledome and Scotia Place. Walk the other way and 11 Avenue runs west into the Beltline's restaurant blocks and up toward 17 Avenue SW.
The tower is one decision and the district around it is another, so read Living in Beltline before you weigh either.
