Eau Claire Plaza billed as 'postcard location in downtown Calgary' ahead of reopening

CBC News

· Posted: Jun 30, 2025 7:18 PM EDT | Last Updated: 6 hours ago

Underground fog emitters and an municipality beach are among the newest additions to the redesigned Eau Claire Plaza.

The downtown Calgary abstraction volition reopen to the nationalist connected Canada Day, with an authoritative opening solemnisation scheduled for July 2 from noon to 2 p.m.

The Eau Claire Plaza aims to beryllium "that iconic postcard determination successful downtown Calgary," said metropolis task manager Dennis Hoffart, during a sneak peek of the redesigned space.

"It connects the municipality cloth of downtown to the earthy situation of the Bow River, and we spot that collision of municipality and quality passim the space," helium said.

It's a caller plan aiming to incorporated arsenic galore elements of the aged plaza arsenic possible, including keeping the iconic Olympic Arch and creating furnishings utilizing trees chopped down during improvement of the caller space.

The plaza's wading excavation has been "reimagined" arsenic a fog-emitting h2o feature, Hoffart said, calling it "a much modern mentation of h2o play."

He said replacing the wading excavation with fog emitters uses little h2o and comes with reduced attraction and cognition costs.

Also caller is an municipality beach with umbrellas and lounge chairs atop sand, which on with the h2o diagnostic is designed to further link the plaza to the Bow River with an urban-natural aesthetic.

The historical Eau Claire and Bow River Lumber Co. gathering has undergone restoration and is present backmost successful the plaza after being relocated successful 2021 to marque mode for construction.

A playground operation volition beryllium completed aboriginal this summertime to regenerate the aged one.

With the plaza meant to invited locals and visitors year-round, accessibility was a driving origin down the redesigned layout.

"We wanted to support the country arsenic level arsenic we perchance could to promote accessibility and entree successful each directions, but we besides wanted to make a consciousness of grandeur and a consciousness of awe," said Hoffart.

Plaza acceptable to invited events

The redesigned Eau Claire Plaza is poised to beryllium a important lawsuit venue, with Mexifest and the Fiestaval Latin Festival among the salient events acceptable to beryllium held astatine the plaza this July.

Mexifest, a Mexican taste celebration, runs from July 4 to 6 astatine the redesigned space.

Mexifest organizer Christian Greiffenstein is looking guardant to returning to Eau Claire Plaza, wherever the lawsuit was archetypal hosted successful 2018.

"We're going to beryllium capable to accommodate possibly doubly arsenic overmuch radical arsenic we had before, truthful we're blessed astir that," helium said, adding that the redesigned plaza offers much flexibility for lawsuit organizers.

The plaza renovation, which outgo $47 cardinal according to Hoffart, is portion of the city's Eau Claire country betterment project, which has included redesigning Jaipur Bridge successful 2022 and completing the Eau Claire Promenade and Downtown Flood Barrier successful 2023.