Photo Credit: Courtesy Of W Architecture and Landscape Architecture
Just 10 years ago, St. Patrick’s Island in Calgary’s Bow River was a little-used, nearly forgotten expanse of land. Now, thanks to the city’s intervention, active community involvement, and sensitive restoration and revitalization by Brooklyn-based W Architecture and Landscape Architecture and Denver-based Civitas, the island has experienced a renaissance. This 31-acre “living island” provides a natural-landscape infrastructure with restored ecological vitality, and is both a well-located community resource and a citywide recreation destination. A vibrant public park, it is a place to play, to relax, to learn—but above all to enjoy the connection between people and nature.
The development of St. Patrick’s originally began in the 1890s and was accelerated by the construction of a bridge linking it to the city in the early 1900s. Located at the northeastern perimeter of the inner-city Rivers District, once a thriving residential and business community, the park was at the center of city life. In the intervening years, however, railroads, highways, and industry began to take over and isolate the island from its surroundings. Having long been used as a campground, St. Patrick’s Island was shut down in 1969, and in subsequent decades went into steep decline. This reflected a long period of disinvestment and deterioration in the surrounding communities, particularly the East Village, which lies directly across on the south bank of the Bow River.
Under the stewardship of W and Civitas, St. Patrick’s has been transformed into an inner-city jewel: a bio-diverse, resilient haven at the center of the now-thriving Rivers District and East Village. Their approach to St. Patrick’s Island grew out of a master-planning process initiated in 2010 with the goal of reversing the island’s decline and restoring it as a vibrant community asset. The Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC), a wholly owned subsidiary of the city of Calgary and dedicated to the revitalization of the Rivers District, identified the island as the centerpiece of its ambitious urban-renewal strategy.