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Downtown East Village more commonly known as simply East Village, is a mixed-use neighbourhood within the eastern portions of downtown Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It is contained within the city's Rivers District. Containing the earliest-settled land in the Calgary area - Fort Calgary - East Village was for years a mixture of high-rise residential, commercial, and industrial development. Much of the parkland currently surrounding Fort Calgary was industrial as recently as the 1960s. Construction of the city's light rail transit Blue Line, coupled with the closure of 8th Avenue at Macleod Trail in the early 1980s by construction of the massive Calgary Municipal Building, resulted in East Village being "cut off," figuratively speaking, from the rest of downtown. As a result, it became home to many rundown properties and vacant lots over the years, and a severe crime problem. Plans to reshape this neighbourhood were approved by Calgary City Council in March, 2005 (East Village Area Redevelopment Plan ). In Spring 2007, Calgary City Council approved the formation of a wholly owned subsidiary known as Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC) with the mandate to revitalize and redevelop the Rivers District, which includes the East Village. Construction began in earnest within the Rivers District by the new corporation in 2007 with the undertaking of a rare downtown Calgary stormwater treatment pond in the NW corner of Fort Calgary. Many of the dilapidated buildings were torn down, to be replaced by modern structures, and the Jack and Jean Leslie RiverWalk along the south bank of the Bow River was completed in the summer of 2012. As of January 2017, several luxury condominium towers have been completed, along with two new hotels, while construction is underway on several more condominium towers, retail buildings, with additional commercial and residential development planned. So far, the neighbourhood has attracted $2.7 billion worth of investment. From Wikipedia
