McKenzie Towne is a master planned residential neighbourhood in the southeast of

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, maki ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest T ...

being developed by

Carma Developers LP Carma Developers, founded in 1958, is a Canadian residential land developer with master-planned communities throughout Canada and the United States. Its head offices are located in Calgary, Alberta where it is the largest residential land develop ...

(now

Brookfield Residential Properties Inc. Brookfield Asset Management Inc. is a Canadian multinational company that is one of the world's largest alternative investment management companies, with over US$725 billion of assets under management in 2022. It focuses on direct contro ...

). The community is bordered on the west by Deerfoot Trail, on the south by Stoney Trail, on the east by 52 St. S.E., and to the north by the South Trail regional commercial centre along 130 Ave. S.E. McKenzie Towne boasts many recreational features, including: the McKenzie Towne Hall managed and operated by the staff and Board of Directors of th
McKenzie Towne Council
(which is the community's Residents' Association). Within the Hall: a gymnasium, meeting and banquet facilities, and a private outdoor park area. The Council offers recreational programming for children, youth, families adults and seniors, as well as facility rentals for events. The Council also runs community events and looks after the landscaping and maintenance of green spaces and amenities. The community also has a network of paved pathways, green spaces and parks; a fountain and splash park; an outdoor hockey rink and skate park and numerous ponds also complement McKenzie Towne. McKenzie Towne also contains one separate school board elementary school and a public elementary school.

Developments

McKenzie Towne is a master planned Neotraditional Community, reflecting a small town. It comes complete with both street front retail, midsize commercial offerings, a wide variety of single family homes, apartments, town houses, churches, seniors care facilities, public and separate board elementary schools, and traditional

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

. The neighbourhood was based on the

new urbanist New Urbanism is an urban design movement which promotes environmentally friendly habits by creating walkable neighbourhoods containing a wide range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has gradually inf ...

movement and original concepts were crafted by

Andres Duany Andres or Andrés may refer to: *Andres, Illinois, an unincorporated community in Will County, Illinois, US *Andres, Pas-de-Calais, a commune in Pas-de-Calais, France *Andres (name) *Hurricane Andres * "Andres" (song), a 1994 song by L7 See also ...

who was the same architect to model Seaside, Florida (the filming location of ''

The Truman Show ''The Truman Show'' is a 1998 American psychological satirical comedy-drama film directed by Peter Weir, produced by Scott Rudin, Andrew Niccol, Edward S. Feldman, and Adam Schroeder, and written by Niccol. The film stars Jim Carrey as Tr ...

'' movie). McKenzie Towne was selected by the Urban Land Institute as one of the top 26 master planned communities in the world. The neighbourhood is divided into four distinct areas: ''Inverness'', ''Elgin'', ''Prestwick'', and ''High Street''. Each of the three areas of McKenzie Towne offer complementing architectural styles. Elgin features six styles of architecture designed to reflect

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. English Cottage,

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but a ...

, English Tudor, French Eclectic,

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian ...

, and English Arts & Crafts. Prestwick and Inverness follows four styles: Queen Anne (Victorian), Georgian, Craftsman, and National. High Street is the commercial area, designed by

Gibbs Gage Architects Gibbs or GIBBS is a surname and acronym. It may refer to: People * Gibbs (surname) Places * Gibbs (crater), on the Moon * Gibbs, Missouri, US * Gibbs, Tennessee, US * Gibbs Island (South Shetland Islands), Antarctica * 2937 Gibbs, an asteroid ...

. It features street oriented commercial with many small businesses and complemented with larger well known retail tenants and a major grocery store.

Education

There are three schools in McKenzie Towne, the

Calgary Catholic School District Calgary Roman Catholic Separate School District No. 1 or the Calgary Catholic School District (CSSD) is the Roman Catholic separate school board in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It also serves the neighbouring communities of Airdrie, Chestermere, ...

has

St. Albert The Great Albertus Magnus (c. 1200 – 15 November 1280), also known as Saint Albert the Great or Albert of Cologne, was a German Dominican friar, philosopher, scientist, and bishop. Later canonised as a Catholic saint, he was known during his life ...

(K-9) in the community.

Calgary Board of Education Calgary School District No. 19 or the Calgary Board of Education (CBE) is the public school board in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. As a public system, the CBE is required to accept any students who meet age and residency requirements, regardless of ...

has two schools in the community McKenzie Towne Elementary (K-4) and a McKenzie Highlands School (5-9).

Demographics

In the City of Calgary's 2012 municipal census, McKenzie Towne had a population of living in dwellings, a 4.6% increase from its 2011 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2012. Residents in this community had a

median household income The median income is the income amount that divides a population into two equal groups, half having an income above that amount, and half having an income below that amount. It may differ from the mean (or average) income. Both of these are ways ...

of $75,325 in 2000, and there were 4.6% low income residents living in the neighbourhood. As of 2000, 11.9% of the residents were

immigrant Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, ...

s. A proportion of 8.9% of the buildings were

condominium A condominium (or condo for short) is an ownership structure whereby a building is divided into several units that are each separately owned, surrounded by common areas that are jointly owned. The term can be applied to the building or complex ...

s or

apartment An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are ma ...

s, and 4% of the housing was used for

renting Renting, also known as hiring or letting, is an agreement where a payment is made for the temporary use of a good, service or property owned by another. A gross lease is when the tenant pays a flat rental amount and the landlord pays for a ...

Commercial development

The main commercial area within McKenzie Towne is the High Street shopping area, a streetscape-style shopping centre anchored at present by a

Sobeys Sobeys Inc. is the second largest supermarket chain in Canada, with over 1,500 stores operating across Canada under a variety of banners. Headquartered in Stellarton, Nova Scotia, it operates stores in all ten provinces and accumulated sales of ...

grocery store and a number of smaller chain and independent retail outlets and restaurants. The major big-box shopping district South Trail Crossing is located along 130th Avenue S.E. along the northern boundary of the Prestwick district and features major retailers such as

Wal-Mart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

. Additional smaller neighbourhood retail is located at several other locations within McKenzie Towne.

Transit

A "park and ride" facility has been constructed adjacent to the High Street shopping area off 52nd Street S.E., and is a hub for the region's current BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) line connecting to downtown; in the future (time-frame yet to be determined), BRT service is to be replaced by a full LRT (Light Rapid Transit) line, with a station earmarked next to the park and ride.

References

External links

Local McKenzie Towne Community web site profile
Local Builders in McKenzie Towne
Vaughan Custom Builders & Design
{{Calgary neighbourhoods Neighbourhoods in Calgary New Urbanism communities