Most people walking past the City Centre Parkade on 10th Avenue have no reason to think there’s anything on the roof worth seeing. We almost didn’t either. High Park sits six floors up, behind an unmarked hallway and an elevator bank, and it took us a minute of wandering before we found the right doors. That’s the whole trick of this place: it hides in plain sight, and it’s genuinely worth the extra few minutes it takes to find it — especially in a neighbourhood that doesn’t have much green space to spare. The Beltline is Calgary’s most populated neighbourhood, and only a small fraction of its land is dedicated to parks, which makes a rooftop this deliberate feel less like a novelty and more like something the area actually needed.
Finding the Elevator
The entrance is on 10th Avenue SW, across from National on 10th, roughly between 2nd and 4th Street, through the ground-level hallway to the elevator banks, then up to Level 6. There’s also a back way in through the Plus15 network via Gulf Canada Square, if you’re already threading through downtown that way. Either route ends the same: an elevator ride that feels a little absurd, because you know you’re heading toward a park, and the doors keep opening onto ordinary parking garage floors until they finally don’t.
It’s a small, honest piece of friction, and it’s worth naming plainly rather than pretending the place announces itself. Once you’re up there, the payoff is immediate.
A Mini High Line, on Top of a Parking Garage
“Quirky and fun,” Audrey called it, once we stepped out onto the roof, comparing it to the High Line in New York, the elevated park we’d visited together years earlier. It turns out she wasn’t just making a loose comparison. The people behind High Park have said outright that the High Line and Brooklyn Bridge Park were direct references when they designed this space, so what sounded like a good guess on camera was actually right.
The whole rooftop is colorful in a way that photographs well without trying too hard, and there’s a specific piece worth watching for on the way up: a mural called Inner Warmth, painted across the entrance hallway by Calgary artist Derek Simmers, stretching a prairie sky across the wall as you walk toward the elevators. It’s one of several murals scattered around the site’s edges, part of a broader collaboration with Calgary’s mural festival that also gave the whole exterior a wraparound paint job, turning what used to be blank parkade concrete into actual wayfinding. Even the park’s own logo carries the joke a little further, its lettering deliberately stretched tall and set at an angle, a nod to both “high” and the ramps you climb to get there.
Down the length of the boardwalk, the park is broken into a series of colour-themed parklets, each framed by its own hand-lettered sign carrying a short, upbeat phrase, clearly built to be photographed and shared. And in a small, deliberate bit of irony, the old painted lane markings that used to direct cars around this exact space have been reused to direct people instead, arrows pointing you along a walking loop where traffic arrows used to point drivers toward a parking stall. It’s a nice detail if you notice it, and easy to miss if you don’t.
What You’ll Find Once You’re Up There
The park has grown since it first opened. What started as swings, picnic benches, and open turf now includes three basketball half-courts, a seesaw, stationary bikes, ping pong, cornhole, tetherball, and a small performance stage added in a later phase. It’s less a single feature than a scattered set of small stations, the kind of place where a kid can run the length of the boardwalk while someone else uses the outer edge as a makeshift running loop. We had it almost entirely to ourselves the day we visited, which felt like a small, quiet luxury for somewhere this photogenic, though it’s clearly built for more people than were up there with us.
It’s popular enough as a backdrop that it regularly hosts birthday parties, engagement shoots, and the occasional wedding photo, on top of everyday downtown workers stopping through for lunch.
The View Down the Rail Lines
The reason to come up here beyond the novelty is the view, and it delivers. You get a clear look at the Calgary Tower and the downtown skyline, plus a genuinely unusual sightline east and west along the CP Rail lines that you won’t get from most other vantage points in the city. It’s not a sweeping panorama in the way a proper observation deck is. It’s more intimate than that, closer to the rooftops, open to the sky and the wind in a way the street below isn’t, which is part of what makes it feel like a discovery rather than a tourist stop.
Before You Go
High Park is free and generally open daily from 7am to 11pm. I’d hold that lightly, though: the park closed for most of the summer of 2025 while construction work restricted access to the parkade below, and only reopened that December. It’s back open now, but a space built on top of someone else’s parking garage is always going to be a little more vulnerable to closures than a normal city park, so a quick check before you make a special trip is worth the thirty seconds it takes. If you’re staying nearby rather than just passing through, the Residence Inn Calgary Downtown/Beltline District sits right on the same stretch of 10th Avenue SW, close enough to make High Park an easy add before or after checking in.
If you can time it right, the park also runs a free outdoor movie series called Movies With a View, which is set to return in 2026. It’s a good excuse to treat this as more than a quick photo stop and actually stay for an evening.
Is It Worth Finding?
Yes, and the friction of finding it is actually part of the appeal. This isn’t a place that rewards you for stumbling onto it by accident. It rewards you for going looking. Once you’re up there, you get real art, a real skyline, more to actually do than the “just a rooftop” description suggests, and a legitimately clever piece of urban design that Calgary borrowed from two of the best examples in North America and made its own. Find the right hallway, take the elevator to six, and give it a proper unhurried visit rather than a five-minute photo stop. It earns the extra time.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where exactly is High Park in Calgary?
It’s on the rooftop of the City Centre Parkade on 10th Avenue SW, across from National on 10th. Enter through the ground-level hallway to the elevator banks and take the elevator up to Level 6, or access it through the Plus15 network via Gulf Canada Square.
Is High Park free to visit?
Yes, it’s a free public park, generally open daily from 7am to 11pm.
Is High Park always open?
Usually, but not guaranteed. It closed for most of the summer of 2025 due to construction work at the parkade below and only reopened that December. I’d recommend a quick check before making a special trip.
What’s actually at High Park?
Swings, three basketball half-courts, an artificial turf lawn, a seesaw, stationary bikes, ping pong, cornhole, tetherball, a small performance stage, colour-themed parklets with sign panels, and several murals, including a piece called Inner Warmth in the entrance hallway.
What can you see from High Park?
The Calgary Tower and the downtown skyline, plus an unusual sightline east and west along the CP Rail lines that you don’t get from most other vantage points in the city.
Is High Park related to New York’s High Line?
Not officially connected, but it was directly inspired by it. The people behind High Park have confirmed the High Line and Brooklyn Bridge Park were references when they designed the space.
Is High Park worth finding on a Calgary trip?
Yes. It takes a bit of effort to locate, but once you’re up there you get real art, a real skyline, and more to actually do than a quick rooftop photo stop.
This guide is also available in Spanish. [Leé la versión en castellano: Guía de High Park Calgary: arte en la terraza, hamacas y vistas a la ciudad]
This article contains affiliate links. If you book through one of these links, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.