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“To be honest, we’re not entirely sure why this happened, so we ended up going with an entirely different product for the waterproofing.”

Over the last two years, the city, which in 1977 signed a 100-year lease on the indoor garden, has worked with the project’s designers to repair the problem, ultimately uprooting every planter to ferret out any potential leaks. That required removing and storing plants, soil and planters to ensure the work was done properly.

“The logistics made it much more complicated than you’d think it is,” Harrison said.

“We thought since we were doing the work anyway that we would address every single planter to make sure everything was working.”

All of the repair work, Harrison said, was covered under warranty and won’t cost the city any additional taxpayer dollars.

Over the last decade, Calgarians have endured multiple months without access to the unique urban park, with four years of construction followed by two years of repair work.

Coun. Druh Farrell, whose inner-city ward includes much of the downtown, said the loss of the popular escape for both office workers and families has been a tremendous burden.

“It was a complicated project and much of it was outside our control, and those delays have been so frustrating,” she said. “But it’s great to see it finally open.”

Now that the park proper is open, Farrell noted, there’s still some work to do to make it more inviting, including the introduction of some of the city’s inventory of public art.

“We’ve heard that there’s not a lot of colour or warmth in the garden other than the vegetation,” she said.

“We’ve got some remarkable pieces in our public art collection, so hopefully in the next little while we’ll add some banners and some colour to it.”

One of the largest indoor gardens of its kind, it boasts a koi pond, more than 500 trees, 50 varieties of plants, a 900-square-foot living wall and a playground for children.

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