If you've bought a ticket downtown in the last four decades, you've been to Arts Commons.
It's called the Werklund Centre now.
The rebuild attached to it, formerly the Arts Commons Transformation and now the Werklund Centre Transformation, is described by Calgary Municipal Land Corporation as the largest arts-focused infrastructure project currently underway in Canada.
Phase 1 is under construction.
What's being built
A three-level building of 170,000 square feet, containing a 1,000-seat theatre and a 200-seat studio theatre.
The larger hall is designed so the floor layout can be reconfigured for different productions. Renderings on CMLC's site show it set up both as a seated theatre and as a flat-floor room for a rock concert.
The studio theatre uses retractable and demountable platform seating and opens directly onto the adjacent plaza.
The ground floor is fully transparent and naturally lit, with a gathering circle under a skylight at the southeast corner. The main entry and both stages sit flush with the sidewalk, which is an accessibility decision as much as a design one.
CMLC describes the form as inspired by regional lodge typologies and Alberta's dramatic landscapes, curved and built around natural materials.
Who's designing it
KPMB, a Toronto firm, alongside Hindle Architects and Tawaw Architecture Collective.
Tawaw is an Indigenous-led practice, and its involvement has shaped the building's approach to gathering space and how the ground floor works as public room rather than lobby.
EllisDon is construction manager and Colliers Project Leaders is project manager. Level Playing Field is the accessibility consultant, and Threshold Acoustics is handling acoustics, which for a concert hall is the discipline that determines whether the building works.
The timeline is longer than people realize
This started six years ago.
October 2020, a tri-party agreement signed between CMLC, Arts Commons and the City of Calgary.
April 2021, the City allocated $80 million through its Greater Downtown Plan.
February 2022, the design team was announced. September 2022, EllisDon came on as construction manager.
April 2024, the design was revealed publicly.
December 2024, groundbreaking, with construction starting in earnest in January 2025.
February 2026, CMLC reported vertical construction taking shape on the theatre box.
2028-29 performance season is the target for completion.
The 1985 building comes later
This is the part worth understanding about what's actually happening.
Phase 1 is a new building. The modernization of the existing facility, the one built in 1985 that Calgarians know, follows once the next phase of funding is secured.
That funding isn't in place.
So what opens in 2028 is an expansion alongside an unmodernized 40-year-old building, and how long that gap lasts depends on decisions nobody has made yet.
What's inside the building now
Worth knowing what the expansion is being attached to, because the existing complex is more than one venue.
The 1985 building houses the Jack Singer Concert Hall, home of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, along with the Max Bell Theatre, the Martha Cohen Theatre, the Engineered Air Theatre and the Motel Theatre.
Those spaces host Theatre Calgary, Alberta Theatre Projects, One Yellow Rabbit and a rotating list of independent companies, alongside touring shows and rentals.
The demand problem is what drove the whole project. CMLC's framing is that the community's need for flexible, accessible venues outgrew what a 40-year-old building could offer, and companies that wanted to stage work at a certain scale had nowhere to put it.
A 1,000-seat hall sits in a gap that's been empty in Calgary for a long time. Big enough for touring productions that can't fill an arena, small enough that a local company can plausibly sell it out.
The 200-seat studio is arguably the more useful addition. That's the size where new work gets made, and where a company can take a risk without betting its season on it.
Olympic Plaza is being rebuilt at the same time
CMLC is also overseeing the $70-million Olympic Plaza Transformation, which broke ground in May 2026 and is scheduled to finish alongside the Werklund expansion in 2028.
Together, the two projects turn a single downtown block into what CMLC calls one of the largest arts and culture campuses in Canada.
Olympic Plaza has been a Calgary fixture since the 1988 Games, and the redevelopment has included a commemoration program for the engraved bricks.
Calgary is rebuilding three major venues at once
Step back and the scale of what's happening downtown is unusual.
Scotia Place, the new arena, opens in fall 2027 at a cost of $926 million for the event centre block. Our construction coverage is here.
The Werklund Centre Transformation and Olympic Plaza both complete in 2028.
And the City is spending $875,000 on a feasibility study into what replaces McMahon Stadium, with the Stampede and the University of Calgary running studies of their own. That story is here.
Four major venue projects in various stages, in a city of 1.6 million, at the same time.
If you're going downtown
Construction hoarding around the site has been turned into a public art installation, with emerging local artists commissioned through a CMLC program covering both the Werklund and Olympic Plaza sites.
Expect ongoing disruption around the block through 2028. The Culture and Entertainment District access map has current construction and detour information.
What's still unknown
When the 1985 building gets modernized, and who pays for it.
What the full transformation costs versus what Phase 1 costs, which CMLC hasn't broken out publicly in a way that's easy to find.
And what the Werklund Centre name means for the venues inside it, which have their own names and their own histories.
Sources
Werklund Centre Transformation — Calgary Municipal Land Corporation
Olympic Plaza Transformation — Calgary Municipal Land Corporation
Werklund Centre
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