Eau Claire Community Association is 30 years old on June 25. We’re planning to have our AGM as close as possible to that date so we can all celebrate with some wine, cheese, and birthday cake. Please watch this newsletter and our website for the exact time and place.
Your ECCA Board has been busy over the last few months, and we want to share some of the highlights.
The City of Calgary is really making downtown revitalization a top priority. Representatives from the ECCA regularly get updates from the Eau Claire Public Realm project and the Green Line project, and we also meet regularly with the Greater Downtown Strategy Team, the Ward 7 Council of Communities, and the Mayor’s Advisory Roundtable – Greater Downtown.
Mayor Gondek is meeting with stakeholders in downtown twice a year. She’s including CAs, BIAs, charities, the arts, building owners, developers, business owners, and others that we don’t usually hear from when we discuss downtown revitalization in other forums. Exposure to these different perspectives is helpful and informative. It allows us to contribute ideas and actions that that can make our larger downtown community a better place to live and, as a bonus, make our property values rise.
Terry Wong recently held the inaugural Ward 7 Council of Communities. This event will be held quarterly and the first one was extremely well-managed. It allowed time for people from each of the 21 communities that are in Ward 7 to talk about both how great our neighbourhoods are and also what help we need from the City. There were opportunities for us to talk to different experts and some time to talk to each other as well. An exciting part of this event was to build connections across the river with Hillhurst/Sunnyside and Crescent Heights.
Getting to know our neighbouring CAs is one of the best things about all of these meetings. We’ve started discussing opportunities to collaborate with Downtown West, Chinatown, East Village, and others. Right now, we’re in the preliminary planning phase of a day of simultaneous events in all four of the riverfront neighbourhoods. Wouldn’t it be great to walk through four communities and experience four festivals in one day? And dip a toe into some of the great culinary options that span our neighbourhoods!
The Greater Downtown Plan is the source of funding we mentioned in our last newsletter – $20,000 for beautification and events in 2022. We’re going to concentrate this year on our Main Street Project. We want to enhance the 7th Street experience by making it easy to stroll along with a coffee, have a seat, and listen to live music. On the other side of the neighbourhood, the Eau Claire Lumber Company building, in it’s temporary resting place, will be available for community events and programming.
Overall, it’s an exciting period to be involved in building new initiatives that will enhance our neighbourhood for years to come. Please contact us if you’d like to volunteer to help in this effort.
