CALGARY, ALTA. – The City of Calgary’s Downtown Flood Barrier and Eau Claire Promenade project has completed construction.
The Downtown Flood Barrier is a continuous 1.39-kilometre-long barrier consisting of steel sheet piles, earthen berms, concrete walls and demountable stop log openings built to resist a one-in-200-year flood event.
The three-year, $36.6 million project began design work in fall 2019 and construction began in summer 2021. The City of Calgary’s council approved a flood resilience plan in 2017 and flood mitigation measures from that program were implemented in the project. Calgary experienced a catastrophic flood event in 2013 that put much of the downtown core underwater and was the largest disaster in Canadian history at the time.
The Eau Claire Promenade was designed to fit with the vision of the Eau Claire Public Realm Plan by creating a connected neighbourhood, which includes safe, efficient and beautiful riverfront multi-modal connections, the City of Calgary project website said.
Public realm improvements included wider pathways, accessibility improvements, delineated routes for different modes of travel, and multiple public realm improvements such as a lagoon platform, Eau Claire feature bench, and lighting and landscaping enhancements.
Cultural materials from Calgary’s earliest days including bottles, a license plate and plates were found and recovered at every stage of construction. The most materially dense area was located immediately adjacent to the Centre Street Bridge, where artifacts were collected from a thick deposit over two metres below the current surface, the release said.
“These findings emphasize and enhance our understanding of the downtown riverfront’s importance and place within the ongoing story that is the city of Calgary,” the release stated.
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