News of Broadcast Hill (former Olympic Village)

The former 1988 Winter Olympics Village was completed in 1987 to provide 266 suites for atheletes during the games and today is a sprawling condominium corporation of nicely improved city-view homes, although it was a rocky road getting here. For many years after the Games the development deriorated while it was run as a rental project, despite being incorporated at the outset as a condominium development. Then there was a failed attempt to sell the project without investing the money needed to modernize the homes.
 
Today's Communities, affliated with continent-wide Unity Builders Group, took over and brought the development to a refurbished conclusion in 2008 and 09, although buy-in owners self-imposed some assessments to address roofing and other issues, so those are finally resolved. As a last step the condominium corporation foreclosed upon 22 suites in 2009 owned by the failed earlier developer. Selling those suites will put money in the bank and see condo contributions flowing---whew, and congratulations the owners and condo Directors who led these efforts!

Terraced up 17 acres of the Broadcast Hill hillside, many of the the townhouses and suites in the 15 buildings have great views of downtown and of north-side Calgary, while those driving east on Bow Trail and along Sarcee Trail notice the made-over housing clusters and recall the Games that initiated them. 'Nice to be able to point this large project out with pride once again!

Indoor parking for most suites is a feature here, as are the abundant visitor parking, acres of lawns and gardens, the rock garden with its waterfall, the tennis court, and the amenity building with its small "lap" swimming pool, hot tub, gym, and fireplace-warmed lounge. Each frame building steps back up the hillside and over top of its small concrete parking garage, which means that suites only partially overlap those below, and giving at-grade suites large patios while those above have large balconies in front of each set-back level. Multi-level lobbies of all the residential buildings have skylight ceilings, some at the top of the terraced buildings forming A-frame peaks.

Building designs allow many top-floor suites to have 16-foot vaulted living-room ceilings and many are two-level suites. Floor areas of one-bedroom suites are betwee 540 and 603 square feet, but these are in the minority. The more common two-bedroom suites start at 840 and range up to 1,044 square feet. All suites that I've seen have a wood-burning fireplace and most if not all suites have an out-of-suite locker.

NOTE that exterior windows and doors at News of Broadcast Hill are each suite owner's responsibility for maintenance and eventual replacement, although I believe these were comprehensively replaced during Today's Homes' extensive renovations, so they should last 30 or 50 years. I keep on file the development's large and complex Condominum Plan, the site plan, and the amenity building floor plan. Unit factors were allocated to all suites in proportion to their floor areas.

The main photo is a dramatic shot from 10 years ago before Today's Homes' upgrades to all the buildings, which are now an earth-tone brown. The building with the triangular overhang pointing toward the viewer is the amentity/pool building.