Piece of land in Inglewood will be home to new fire station and more

Calgary is now taking bids on a piece of land in Inglewood where it hopes to build a new fire station, with a few notable additions.

The vacant land, at the corner of 11th Avenue and 12th Street S.E., is being targeted as mixed use development by the city, meaning it would be home to a fire station along with potential for housing, retail or office space.

As an example, Calgary Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra said that affordable housing built at the site could serve as a community benefit and increase density near a future Green Line LRT station.

"You know, if you wanted to come to the table with some affordable component, I think you would probably end up scoring higher than someone who wasn't coming with, or you would get more points than housing that didn't involve an affordable component," Carra said.

Calgary no longer builds fire stations as single-use sites, and is hoping to sell the land to a developer who would incorporate other development alongside the fire department so as to generate more property tax revenue.

"So the basic offering that's out to the private sector right now is,'Hey, we've got this land. It needs to accommodate a fire station and we've got this much money to build a fire station,'" Carra said.

"'Who wants to partner with us to build that fire station for this amount of money, plus as much of an additional mixed-use program surrounding the fire station?'"

The site has been anticipated as a future fire station since being purchased in the 1990s, according to the city's website. The service is required in the area to support the fire department's needs downtown and in the inner-city neighbourhoods.

The city is hoping to reach a deal with a developer by the end of the year.