With development plans in the works, it is now known as the Ramsay Exchange, but since the early 20th century it has been an industrial manufacturing site, home to Riverside Iron Works and later, Dominion Bridge.

In the early 1920s, Spiller Road S.E. was known as Macleod Trail, and it ran diagonally just east of the (then) new home of Riverside Iron Works. Owner Frederick Irving had just relocated his steel foundry from the community of Bridgeland to Ramsay, which was, at the time, divided into two separate communities by the names of Grandview (located on the hill overlooking the Elbow River) and Burnsland (the lower portion of the area).

Spiller Road runs parallel along the east side of the Elbow River through the community of Ramsay, connecting 25 Avenue and 9 Avenue southeast. The new foundry was built on seven acres to the east of this road, at 24 Avenue S.E., with three brick buildings constructed to house the steel manufacturing company.

In 1929, Montreal-based Dominion Bridge purchased Riverside and the Ramsay site, along with an additional 13 acres. Over the years, the company contributed much to the Calgary skyline, including the steel structures of both Elveden House downtown and the top of the Calgary Tower. The Dominion Bridge foundry closed its doors in 1987.

Though passersby may be quick to write off the collection of buildings now located at the Ramsay Exchange as an industrial site not worth a glance, the site already has a few noteworthy features going for it, and Calgary developer Torode Development has big plans for its future.

The Ramsay Exchange is home to the original brick buildings that housed Dominion Bridge, a large, blue, steel warehouse, a welcoming urban coffee shop and a controversial, world-renowned art installation.

“This site, because of its evolution, has incorporated not just industrial uses, but also office uses, and a lot of different arts groups have had their spaces here,” says Eileen Stan, Torode’s vice-president of development. “There are a lot of different stories and it has a unique social history as well.”

Over an estimated ten-to 15- year build-out, the company will develop the site into a mixed-use development to include townhomes, condos, office and retail space and a variety of public spaces meant to foster a “sense of space.”

“I see history as an ongoing thing,” says Stan. Torode plans to build on the history of the site, not erase it, by preserving much of what is there and providing interpretive pieces through which the public can learn more about the history of the Exchange.

The original brick buildings that were built for Riverside in the 1920s will be designated as historical buildings and will be preserved in the development of the site. Currently these buildings are home to Plains Fabrication and two media companies. Plains

Fabrication has partially vacated the two wings it occupies, and renovations are ongoing in this space in order to create more spaces for retail and office use. Plains Fabrication is expected to be off the site by the end of 2009, and renovations on the building will continue once they have moved out.

The large, blue steel building nicknamed the Blue Whale will also be saved and redeveloped. Stan concedes that some people may not see the Blue Whale, which was built in the 1950s, as a building that could fit in with a new, vibrant development, but Torode envisions a new life for it.

“We saw the history as really being quite valuable to the redevelopment of this site­­­—not just the brick buildings, but (the Blue Whale building) as well,” says Stan. “Architecturally, we can see some really great opportunities—it has some incredible, clear spans, and the structure is quite interesting.”

“It also speaks to the nature of what was here and we certainly plan on incorporating that throughout the redevelopment.”

Stan points out that there is great opportunity in the project to contrast the original architecture with contemporary architecture. In fact, this was the inspiration for the name, Ramsay Exchange, which represents the exchange of ideas between old and new; industrial and modern; work and play.

Another building on the site, which will not be saved, is occupied by F&D Scene Changes.

Ramsay Exchange is also home to Café Rosso, a small, hip coffee house and eatery; an alley that was used in the blockbuster Brokeback Mountain; and a large art installation entitled Device to Root Out Evil by Dennis Oppenheim. The piece is described as “the pinnacle work” of Oppenheim’s career by Glenbow Museum president Jeffrey Spalding and is said to have the potential to place Calgary on the international cultural stage.

“It’s a fantastic addition to the community,” says Stan, explaining that John Torode is “a very big supporter of visual arts and public art in particular” and pointing out that TORODE Development has incorporated public art in all of its redevelopment projects.
“We will develop an opportunity with some of the artifacts from the site to incorporate the industrial history through the expression of art,” says Stan. “That history will continue to play out.”  CL