Cowboys Park gets fresh public consultation after first phase prompts backlash
Beginning this week, Calgarians can offer input on improvements they'd like to see to the function and layout of Cowboys Park, formerly known as Shaw Millennium Park, in the downtown west end.
The online call for consultation is open until April 21.
City administration plans to release a report in May on the results of the Cowboys Park feedback, which it says will help guide the future of the space.
But the engagement arrives after the uncertainty surrounding the park has already prompted one popular annual festival to find another venue.
Calgary International Bluesfest founder and producer Cindy McLeod was shocked to learn about potential changes to Cowboys Park in February, she told CBC host Anis Heydari on this week's episode of This Is Calgary.
McLeod said the city sent her an updated map of the venue in February that appeared to show some of the park's greenspace paved over, and its stage and amphitheatre removed.
The notice about these changes arrived too late, McLeod argued, adding that she waited as long as she could for confirmation about how the venue may change, but the lack of answers eventually led her to find a new home for her festival.
It will instead be hosted at The Confluence, at 750 9th Ave. S.E., this summer.
"I can't even begin to tell you how stressful it's been not knowing where we were going to land this year and what that might look like," McLeod said.
"I've been selling tickets since last fall. I have artists booked, suppliers booked, so to pivot all those things is really quite a hefty task."
The former Shaw Millennium Park has hosted Calgary's Bluesfest for 14 years. The park underwent a name change after its agreement with Shaw expired, and last summer, the city signed a 10-year naming and sponsorship deal with Cowboys. The deal will bring the long-running annual Cowboys Music Festival, which coincides with the Calgary Stampede, to the park beginning this summer.
The city's new event centre displaced Cowboys Music Festival from its old location, necessitating it find a new home. Last summer, Cowboys said it would work with the city to upgrade the west-end park's infrastructure to invite more community use and attract more festivals.
After the park's initial changes were agreed to without public consultation, McLeod said Calgarians should be able to provide input on the park's future.
Replacing Olympic Plaza
Allison Fifield, the city's community parks initiative lead, told This Is Calgary that Cowboys Park is losing 20 to 30 per cent of its green space in phase one of the park's transformation. That work was part of the agreement the city made with Cowboys in the first place.
"There was no engagement that could happen on something that was part of a negotiated agreement," Fifield said. "This part we always knew was going to happen."
The first phase of changes to the park, including upgrading utilities and paving over some of the park's greenspace, was paid for by funds from the city's deal with Cowboys, Fifield added.
The city had been working with Cowboys since 2022 to find a way to partner and create a more vibrant downtown park, Fifield said. This was especially important for the city because it can no longer rely on Olympic Plaza as a venue with a hardened surface, due to its redevelopment. The deal with Cowboys allows Calgary to create another event venue to use in Olympic Plaza's place.
The amount of money the city is receiving from its deal with Cowboys is confidential, Fifield said, because publicizing such details would put the city in a worse negotiating position for future sponsorship agreements.
While she understands the distrust Calgarians may feel about the deal's details being confidential, and how the city didn't engage the public for feedback about the first phase of the park's evolution, she said the agreement was made with Calgarians in mind.
"The basic structure of the park isn't changing. We're just updating it," Fifield said, adding the park hasn't had a refresh in decades.
The park's basketball court, skate park and volleyball courts will all remain, she said.
Looking ahead, Fifield said the city wants to hear about what Calgarians want to see to improve the park in phase two, and how they want to use it. She suggested possible ideas could include winterized washrooms, other sports facilities, and the capability to host more food trucks or markets.
Site design not part of council decision
Cowboys Park falls in Ward 7, represented by Coun. Terry Wong. He told This Is Calgary that after the city's deal with Shaw expired, a request for proposal went out for a new park sponsor, with Cowboys answering the call.
Wong said details about site preparation weren't part of city council's discussion when it approved the deal with Cowboys.
"What we were presented with was a business case [and] the economics associated with it, as opposed to how it was going to be activated, how it was going to be designed, how it was going to be used. That part wasn't fully fleshed out at the time," Wong said.
What needs to be weighed now, Wong says, is retrofitting Cowboys Park to make it a multi-purpose area that can host more events and festivals in a part of the city that he notes has few such activities, against what the community wants the park to be, as it's typically been used for recreational purposes in the past.
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