September 29, 2021 – Calgary, AB – In an open letter submitted to the current city council, mayoral candidates, Ward 7 candidates and others today, the Crescent Heights Business Improvement Area is asking for action after Green Line construction in the area was postponed this summer.

“This will-they-wont-they situation has been ongoing since a north-Central LRT line was first mentioned in 1980,” says Crescent Heights Village BIA Executive Director Camie Leard. “The result has been a decades-long state of investment and development limbo and a deteriorating community. We can’t wait any longer without a plan for Crescent Heights.”

Leard says while politics, economics and other forces decide what is to become of Centre Street, investment stalls, development halts, sidewalks crumble, business owners can’t make decisions and entrepreneurs interested in long-term tenancies take their businesses elsewhere.

“As a small BIA, we can only do so much,” says Leard. “We’ve brought in some public art, some garbage and recycling bins and planters to spruce the place up – but we need major improvements to traffic and infrastructure to make up for years of neglect and create tax-generating destination shopping and business area. Those improvements were promised as a part of the Green Line construction and we still need them to happen, whether the train eventually comes through our neighbourhood or not.”

The letter requests a definitive minimum timeline for the Green Line construction as well as changes to traffic and parking measures to help make the BIA quieter, slower and safer for pedestrians.

“The bottom line is that the back-and-forth of Green Line project has had a real and lasting impact on Centre Street,” says Leard. “And we can’t expect small business to survive and thrive in such uncertainty.”

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Media Contact:
Camie Leard, Executive Director
Crescent Heights Village BIA
(403) 701-7686