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Devonian Gardens is set to close on July 18 so crews can fix the leaking and complete additional maintenance work. It’s anticipated the gardens will re-open before the end of the year.

Marter said the work, and the man hours spent trying to determine what was wrong, is all covered under warranty.

It took contractors so long to discover which seven or eight planters were leaking because of the nature of having a garden that needs watering on the fourth floor of a mall.

“It’s been a considerable amount of time trying to figure out exactly what was leaking and where it was coming from because once it got into that subfloor area, the water would go all kinds of different places,” Marter said.

Like finding the problem, the fix isn’t easy and will involve taking all plants out, fixing the planters and putting the plants back in.

“It’s complicated to fix it because the gardens are constructed in the Core, on top of an area where all of the utilities and heating and ventilation run through for the stores below,” Marter said.

Marter said the decision to temporarily close the area was made jointly by the city and 20 VIC Managament Inc., the property managers for the downtown mall.

Domenic Mazzocchi, spokesman for 20 VIC Management Inc., said traffic counts show about a million visitors a year flock to the relaxing indoor oasis in the middle of Calgary.

“I hope that whatever needs to be done gets done as quickly as possible,” he said.

Mazzocchi said once the leaking issue is fixed, the damaged ceilings of stores below will be addressed.

“There’s the odd ceiling that needs to be re-drywalled. Some tenants have ceilings that need to be repaired,” he said.

The city rents out the Devonian Gardens for paid corporate functions, weddings, and social events — a wedding ceremony with capacity for 150 people costs $2,150 – and the city will be honouring all current bookings in the park during the closure.

Private events are held on the east side, an area that won’t be impacted by the needed work, according to the city.