Carlson Aquascape Waterfall Shuts Down

The Carlson Aquascape Waterfall which falls from from Tucker Amphitheatre to Maclab Theatre below has been turned off for good. The water feature at Lee Pavilion inside Citadel Theatre is in need of a major renovation. Rather than repairing it, management has opted to decorate it with lights.

User Anthony O’Flynn on the Historic Edmonton and Northern Alberta group commented more in depth about what happened, “During the pandemic shutdown it was emptied to seal the bottom pond. The face of the waterfall shifted about two inches after drying out. An inspection revealed major rust damage to the supports for the tiled face of the waterfall. The copper tiles were saved…”

According to Wikipedia, the name of Citadel Theatre originated when the founders purchased and held theatre productions in a former Salvation Army Citadel in 1965.

The current Citadel Theatre building, designed by architect Barton Myers, opened in 1976 and is home to five performance spaces (none of which are named Citadel Theatre) as well as the City of Edmonton Cultural Hall of Fame.

This is not the first waterfall to shut down in downtown Edmonton. In 2014, City Council closed down Peter Lewis’ Great Divide Waterfall on High Level Bridge due to a cost from as low as $250,000 to as high was $2.6 million to upgrade the waterfall which would be environmentally sound for the North Saskatchewan River ecosystem, despite having $735,000 set aside. Instead, the consolation was to have citizens raise $2.5 million to Light the Bridge with coloured LED lights which opened Canada Day the same year.

More on Edmonton’s Urban Waterfalls here.

The waterfall has been decorated with lights, and there are suggestions of using the wall for projection art installations in the future.