Marc & Mada’s Development Vision
The Marc & Mada vision is the result of a partnership between two local organizations with a long history of investment in Calgary – Truman Homes (developer and builder) and Calgary Co-op (landowner since 2020). Together, they envision Marc & Mada as an innovative and vibrant Main Street-oriented development, anchored by a fresh Calgary Co-op urban grocery store.
Marc & Mada offers a unique opportunity to provide new housing options, active local businesses and high quality public spaces to ensure that the Marda Loop Main Streets continue to evolve and thrive. Our development vision follows a smart growth model that places people and jobs near amenities, transit and services.
Sustainable Development Approach
We are dedicated to reducing our environmental impact by minimizing energy consumption, carbon emissions, and waste in the construction, operation, and maintenance of Marc & Mada. The development proposal will meet and exceed the National Energy Code of Canada for Buildings, and among other interventions will feature a high efficiency building envelope to significantly reduce energy usage.
Calgary Co-op is an industry leader in sustainability and employs a range of green initiatives in grocery locations across Calgary. Grocery stores typically experience the highest energy waste through their refrigeration systems, and among other interventions the Calgary Co-op grocery store at Marc & Mada will feature a sophisticated reclaim system to capture the systems’ heat byproduct to redistribute hot air and water to other parts of the building.
Design Principles
Enhanced Main Street.
Achieve a high-quality public realm along active site edges – meeting and exceeding the urban design measures proposed through the Marda Loop Main Streets Initiative and Streetscape Master Plan for 33 AV SW, 34 AV SW. and 20 ST SW.
Quality Housing Options.
Provide housing options that support inclusivity for new residents with a diversity of backgrounds, income levels, lifestyles, and abilities.
Vibrant Destination.
Strengthen the relationship between people and place by creating lively, community-oriented public space, amenities and services that promote interaction in the heart of Marda Loop.
Climate Forward.
Embrace best practices for environmentally sustainable site design, construction approach, and building operations.
World Class Architecture.
Design attractive buildings that effectively use form, function and materiality to create a positive urban design impact.
Economically Viable.
The success of the Marc & Mada Block is dependent upon a smart growth model that enables high quality architecture and urban design outcomes through economically-viable business operations and development practices.
Design Process
Main Street Activation
Main Street Enhancements
The Marc & Mada development proposal is intended to complement ongoing improvements being undertaken by the City of Calgary’s Main Street initiative including significant servicing and utility upgrades, traffic flow adjustments and streetscape enhancements. The Marc & Mada building takes a considered urban design approach that incorporates high quality landscaping and place-making elements in order to create an inviting atmosphere and fit with the City’s surrounding Main Street enhancements.
Local Businesses
Marc & Mada is envisioned as a vibrant retail hub that is anchored around a ±25,000 sq ft urban-format Calgary Co-op grocery store, and will feature ±21,000 sq ft of additional small scale commercial retail and restaurant spaces on the ground level and the second level rooftop space.
SOME OF THESE NUMBERS WILL CHANGE
Publicly-Accessible Amenity
The Marc & Mada development vision introduces a new high-quality urban park space to the community with an innovative publicly-accessible rooftop. Our rooftop park will include gathering spaces, fire pits, seating areas, landscaped greenspace and play areas on the second level of Marc & Mada that are open to the public. An outdoor movie screen will play films and showcase public art year round. A civic staircase on the Southwest corner of Marc & Mada is envisioned as a new hot-spot where community members can meet a friend, enjoy a coffee or just relax and soak up the sun.
Marc & Mada’s publicly-accessible landscaped area covers 46,691 sqft or about 60% of the total site area. The landscape plan introduces x street trees, x sqft of soft landscaping (grass and planter beds) and x additional trees and shrubs within the site’s landscaped area.
SOME OF THESE NUMBERS WILL CHANGE.
Residential Program
The Marc & Mada development vision proposes ±500 new residential units ranging in scale from studios to 3 bedroom units. Our vision is to provide new housing choices in the community for a broad range of ages, wages and stages – including downsizers, single individuals, students, couples and families. Future residents of Marc & Mada will enjoy ±19,600 sqft of shared residential amenity space including outdoor rooftop patios, a dog play area, coworker spaces, a fitness gym, recreation spaces, lounges and a kid zone. Residents will also have access to well-established community amenities such as schools, community organizations, local businesses and services which will allow them to live, work, play and shop within their community.
Affordable Housing
Truman Homes is partnering with the Liberty Housing Organization to dedicate a portion of the Marc & Mada units as affordable, non-market housing. Liberty Housing is a non-profit organization committed to creating socially, financially, and environmentally responsible homes through their innovative affordable Ownership and Rental Programs. Liberty and Truman have a dynamic longstanding partnership that allows Liberty to acquire affordable housing units directly through Truman-led projects. Liberty Housing’s mission is to help close Calgary’s affordability gap – and they believe that everyone deserves a safe, comfortable, and affordable place to call home.
SOME OF THESE NUMBERS WILL CHANGE.
Circulation
Vehicular
The Marc & Mada site currently has four vehicular access points. The proposed building design reduces vehicular access, resulting in less disruption to the public streetscape. The underground parkade ramp for visitor and residents is accessed from 34 AV SW. The proposed loading and back-of-house areas are located within a covered area on the western edge of the site and limited number of commercial vehicles will have access to this area from 33 AV SW and a public lane.
Parking
The Marc & Mada building design includes four levels of underground parking with a total of ±710 stalls to accommodate residents and visitors to the retail spaces and Calgary Co-op Grocery store. The residential parking supply exceeds City of Calgary Bylaw parking standards, by providing at least one stall per unit, for a total of ±530 stalls. In addition, the underground parking area includes a large number of secure bike stalls and mobility storage spaces for residents. In order to determine an appropriate commercial parking supply, a transportation engineer undertook a parking study that reviewed the parking demand of retail spaces and grocery stores within Calgary. A total of ±170 parking stalls are provided on the first level of the underground parkade for visitors shopping at the grocery store and the other onsite businesses.
SOME OF THESE NUMBERS WILL CHANGE.
Building Height
The Marc & Mada development is a neighbourhood of buildings with one shared podium that range from 12 to 19 storeys in height, with a maximum building height of ±62 m proposed. The building scale is arranged across the Marc & Mada site to prioritize sunlight on the publicly accessible amenity space, and places the tallest height at the most active commercial corner – at the intersection of 33 AV SW and 20 ST SW.
SOME OF THESE NUMBERS WILL CHANGE.
Building Anatomy
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Site Area
t1.8 ac(0.7 ha)
Residential
Area
504 Units (mix of studio, 1, 2 & 3 bedroom)
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Building Height
62 m
Commercial/Retail/
Grocery Area
±4,250 sqm
(±45, 650 sqft)
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Storeys
12, 17 and 19 storeys
Publicly-Accessible
Landscaped Area
±4,250 sqm
(±45, 650 sqft)
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Floor Area Ratio
6.5
Underground
Parking
537 Residential Stalls, 170 Commercial Stalls, XXX Secure Bike Stalls