Horizontal and vertical mixed use.

Bear Street is Banff’s secondary entrance and ‘main street’. In 1991 it was distinctly secondary, flanked by low grade services and parking lots under fragmented ownership. Council identified the 100 Block as the site of a new Town Hall, and asked Planning Director Doug Leighton to come up with a plan.

Dialog (then Cohos Evamy Partners) was retained to investigate options for mixed land uses, including a food store, parking structure, Town Hall and public plaza. This led to placing the Town Hall in a prominent location at one end of the block, a parking structure at the opposite end, and mixed-use building (food store with affordable apartments above) and public plaza in the middle.

The 100 Bear Street Plan was implemented by a series of land exchanges, re-zonings and development agreements. The result:

• Banff Town Hall, designed by Sturgess Architecture to reflect local vernacular architecture (won the Alberta Association of Architects (AAA) Significant Alberta Architecture Award 2003)

• The Whyte Foundation Building, designed by Marshall Tittemore Architects to include a local food store and apartments above

• 300 vehicle Bear Street Parkade, designed by KWL and Bill Marshall to incorporate street frontage display space

• Reconfiguration and re-landscaping of Bear Street to increase pedestrian amenity