4 minute read
Parker’s Pen
BY DAVID PARKER
Heights really bother me. I don’t even like step ladders, so when I was invited to ride in a cage on the outside of the under-construction Dorian Hotel right to the recently topped-off 27th floor, I was in a bit of a of a predicament.
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Too scared to accept – too proud to decline.
But I made it, staring at the hotel wall that registered each floor number and then got worried about going down again. Never did look out over the downtown skyline, but did marvel at the amount of concrete, piping, ducts and electrical outlets and how they are designed to make the building work.
And then I remembered that the design of what will be a luxurious 308-room first class hotel, was designed by Calgary’s Gibbs Gage Architects. Kudos to Patricia Phillips and her team at PBA Group of Companies for selecting local talent.
Which leads me to my first gripe in the award of the position of prime architect for the design of the new theatre by Arts Commons on part of the Olympic Plaza site, I hear, to a Toronto architect.
Trouble is all of the local firms who bid for the project teamed up with out-of-town ‘starchitects’ because they felt that they wouldn’t stand a chance of making the short list on their own experience; no matter that we have several in this city more than qualified to do the job.
More taxpayer’s money leaving the city. Surely any project funded by the City, CMLC, the Stampede, the arts and educational institutions should list the use of local companies in their criteria. Hats off to Wayne Chiu and his Trico Group for all of the ways in which he shows he is a caring and supportive Calgarian.
Much of that Wayne and his wife Eleanor support through their philanthropic Trico Charitable Foundation goes unheralded; it is also in the vision he has in the health and betterment of citizens that marks him as a compassionate businessman.
Trico LivingWell at Kingsland Junction is an aging with purpose active community being built by Trico on its Macleod Trail campus of five buildings. The Chius were the major donors of the Chiu School of Business at Bow Valley College and Wayne is marrying his connection with the college in a partnership that has LivingWell sitting on the college’s nursing program curriculum advisory committee as well as providing opportunities for its student internships.
We were all looking forward to a new council that was a little more collaborative than the previous team. They certainly came together quickly to dump all over Councillor Chu, even before they were sworn in or had all of the facts. And our new mayor led the charge by saying she would not participate in his swearing in.
I see the Coronet but where is the Kind Heart.
Further punishment came with keeping him off committees. “Let him who has not sinned cast the first stone.”
Final Words
When it’s dark enough you can see the stars.
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