May 5, 2025

The Plus 15 (+15) is a system of mostly connected skybridges running through the downtown core, connecting buildings above street level. Calgary’s winters are notoriously cold, and even when chinooks roll into the city, the +15 can be an appealing alternative to slushy sidewalks. The +15 is a mix of differing styles and differing levels of integration. In some buildings, the +15 is the focal point of the building’s atrium. This can be seen in buildings like AMEC Place, the former Nexen Building (801 7 Street), and Bow Valley Square. In others, the addition of a +15 can feel like it was perhaps added as an afterthought; a hallway stapled to the back of the building.

Some sections of the network can feel like ghost towns for hours on end and then suddenly burst to life around noon and then again between 4 and 6 in the afternoon. Other parts of the network are consistently busy throughout the day.

Skyways and skybridges are nothing new. Renaissance Italy saw the two city states of Florence and Venice build the Vasari Corridor and the Bridge of Sighs, respectively. The Vasari Corridor connects the Pallazo Vecchio to the Uffizi to the Palazzo Pitti across the Arno. The Bridge of Sighs in Venice connects the Doge’s Palace to the prison and is so named because prisoners would sigh at the beauty of Venice as they were escorted to their cells. More popped up during the Industrial Revolution, connecting factories and warehouses together.

The first pedestrian bridges in Calgary started popping up during the Age of Optimism – the first building and population boom in Calgary, between 1905-1913. A fire insurance map from 1914 (below) shows a handful of bridges connecting retail buildings to warehouses across alleyways. The Royal Hotel, now where the Milestones on Stephen Avenue is located, had a bridge connecting to a dry goods store where the Marriott Hotel stands today. Another bridge can be seen connecting the Neilson Furniture Store to a cabinet shop across the alley on 7 Avenue. Both buildings have been integrated into Hyatt Hotel and TELUS Convention Centre. A third bridge, not shown on the fire insurance map, connected the Norman Block to a 7 Avenue market building. The two buildings together were referred to as The Arcade, a small shopping centre. A fire gutted the Norman Block and the market building in 1936, and reconstruction efforts did not include the bridge. Satellite photos from 1948 show the bridge was gone, and the status of other bridges is uncertain through satellite imagery from that year.

The first lasting skyway in Calgary was built in 1956, between the Hudson’s Bay Company Department Store and the newly built Bay Parkade across 7 Avenue from it. That bridge, technically a +30 as it connected third storeys together, eventually had a lower level attached. The whole bridge was demolished during the construction of Brookfield Place, but the +15 level was rebuilt and redesigned to match the style of Brookfield Place. The bridge, then just called a Skywalk, would stand alone until the 1960s. There had been no public plans to build any more bridges until the Downtown Plan was published at the end of the 1960s.

HBC Skywalk, March 20 1956, Calgary Herald.

The +15 was a result of the 1966 Downtown Development Plan, the brainchild of architect-planner Harold Hannen who was a part of the planning department until 1969. The first newspaper reference of the skywalk bridges being referred to as Plus 15s came in February 1969, when the bridge connecting the Calgary Inn (Now the downtown Westin) and the Metropolitan Conference Centre and Calgary Place towers was announced.

First Proposed Official Plus 15 Bridge, Feb 12, 1969

By 1972, planning and approval of some office towers involved consideration of +15 bridges. An article in the Calgary Herald discusses approval of the construction of a 34-storey office tower (which would go on to be the Sun Oil Tower, which stands at 32 storeys) but points out that the location of its +15 bridge had yet to be determined. Several articles from the ‘70s read similarly with either the location of the bridges already determined, to be determined, or room left in the tower for future bridges. There also seemed to be a lot of issues surrounding ownership of the bridges, which led to delays in development.

By the end of the ‘80s, the Plus 15 was just a fact of the downtown commercial core. Work notices were regularly published in the newspaper for maintenance. But by this time, too, people started commenting on the stark appearance of the network. It was also causing some problems. The bridge connecting Bankers Hall to Gulf Canada Square, for instance, was delayed and frequently caused problems with traffic. The bridge connecting the Glenbow Museum and the Centre for the Performing Arts (Now Arts Commons) was delayed a few times. It had even been opened and then promptly closed during the launch event for the downtown East End revival[i].

Window cleaner at the Hotel Westin over 4 Ave, Jan 16 1989, Calgary Herald

Critics have long stated that the network creates a pseudo-public, mall-like network above the streets where businesses below suffer[ii]. The bridges, after all, started during the revitalization of the downtown in the late ‘60s and ’70s, when the suburban mall became very popular. The intent was noble: separate pedestrians from motor vehicle traffic, thus improving safety and comfort. Since the introduction of the personal automobile, the streets had become increasingly unsafe for pedestrians and saw their space on streets decline. Concepts like the +15 saw the pedestrian realm downtown dwindle further[iii]. A 1979 article in the Herald states that sidewalks could become obsolete in Calgary by 2000[iv]. So, in 1998 (and again in 2019), the City of Calgary began to re-evaluate the system. The 2019 plan called for better mobility and accessibility to the network, something that is a work in progress. At the same time, the Downtown Commercial Core also started seeing more pedestrian activity on the streets themselves. More people are living downtown, office workers are returning to the downtown core, office vacancy rates are improving, and more and more people are interested in walkability, human scale, and vibrancy.

In Human Geography, there is a concept called “Placelessness.” It refers to how similar places have become, especially in corporate architecture, that they could be located anywhere in the world[v]. So much of the +15 could be described in this way, especially newer parts of the network. Huge parts of the network feel like they could belong to a mall either built or renovated any time in the past 20 years. Other cities have similar systems: Edmonton has the Pedway, Toronto has the PATH network, and Montreal has the RESO. Houston, St. Paul, and Minneapolis have skyway systems, too, with the Twin Cities’ network spanning a greater area than the +15. Yet the +15 is still so uniquely Calgary. Back in 2000, an indie film, waydowntown, was made with the +15 as a focal point of the movie’s plot. There has been much discussion about whether the +15 is good for the vibrancy of Calgary’s downtown. The benefits of shifting pedestrians away from the public realm of streets and sidewalks to a more pseudo-public area, which is not open 24/7 and is privately managed, may be argued. But doing so created a unique ecosystem in Calgary’s downtown core. Love it or hate it, the +15 is now engrained in Calgary’s identity and culture.

[i] Darran Anderson, Why Every City Feels the Same Now, The Atlantic August 24 2020 https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/08/why-every-city-feels-same-now/615556/

[ii] Taylor Lambert, Up and Over It: Plus-15 hater moves downtown and learns about system’s charms. Swerve Magazine/Calgary Herald https://calgaryherald.com/life/swerve/up-and-over-it-plus-15-hater-moves-downtown-and-learns-about-systems-charms

[iii] Newsroom Staff, Calgary Herald. Want to revive Calgary streets? Ditch some plus-15s, expert urges https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/calgary-downtown-pedestrians-retail-streets-versus-plus-15

[iv] Don Martin, By the year 2000 downtown sidewalks may be obsolete. Calgary Herald. https://www.newspapers.com/image/482406337/?match=1&terms=sidewalks%20obsolete

[v] Don Martin, Plus 15’s tentacles slowly spreading. Nov 19 1990, Calgary Herald https://www.newspapers.com/image/485242252/?match=1&terms=%22Plus%2015%20bridge%22%20

Calgary's Plus 15 System