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What do you think of this project?


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^^^^ The cost bears on necessity as much, say, as an elevator or public restrooms in most instances. The conveyance of people to other portions of a development or shared facilities is of course weighted by need and convenience. A developer would not do away with the building lobby although standing on its own is not a revenue generator; same is true of a pedway connection. They are typically no more expensive than other building amenities and are much less expensive than many (high-speed elevators for example). They, as much as any other part of a building system, are governed by building codes and inspection -- not really much of a "grey area".
 
The most important thing about all of this is that this will ensure the HO is here long term. Calgary and Vancouver have been circling for decades trying to get the Bank to move. The ever increasing CWB executive’s living in Cal, Van and TO was a threat to eventually moving the HO. As much as it pains me to say, there remains a massive problem of not being able to recruit high end executives to E-town. I know ATB has the same problem. Think NHL free agents not wanting to sign in Edmonton but on a corporate scale.

This. I have been a proponent on this forum for more and improved corporate development and for me it frustrating to continue hearing this. For decades Edmonton has not taken corporate business development serious. You can extend back all the way to having companies like Shaw, Oxford Properties, Ledcor, Telus, etc. leaving town with few city council champions to reverse that trend. Perhaps it is because historically Edmonton has been labelled a "blue collar" town but this has been an ugly trend for decades and I believe this sits on the leaders elected.

Until we have a Mayor aka Chief Branding Officer that decides one day that Edmonton's corporate relationships and development need to improve then the trend you highlight will continue. We have very few large homegrown Edmonton corporations left (Stantec, CWB, PCL) and are one Enbridge consolidation away from having the remaining roles canned from the city.

This city needs a champion that is willing to improve corporate relations and put the city's name out there with mid to large corporations considering Alberta and unfortunately, Sohi and Iveson were/are not the guys to do it, nor seem like it is a topic of interest...which ironically, is one of the largest topics that impacts the city in a significant way.
 
@CaptainBL Misery loves company -- that is why they move to Toronto (especially) and Vancouver. Edmonton is getting there. From a population perspective I believe it will overtake Calgary within the next decade to land in fourth spot and it will be challenging metro Vancouver for third by 2050. It has a bright and shiny future. I would just like to see northern Alberta's economy diversify with more creation of secondary and tertiary industries, with more emphasis on manufacturing than the sale of raw product -- I believe that is starting to happen.
 
Too negative an outlook. Yes we would want to have retained those head offices but you are ignoring a big group of newer generation Edmonton companies here and growing fast. Very happy CWB is recommitting to a HQ building in Edmonton.
Huhhhh?? Did you read my post at all?

If you did any kind of research you would note that this city has quite the documented long and unfortunate history of corporations leaving the city and public spats between councilors and corporation (see Jan Riemer and Shaw). Not to mention that our head office count was 20 in 2020, which was a decline of 5 from 10 years earlier and is only 9 more than Regina.

Hoping that the city champions and leaders have a come to Jesus moment to improve relations while attracting other companies and to ensure the retention of companies like CWB and the very new generation of companies you are referring to is a negative outlook? I too am glad CWB is staying in Edmonton. Your reply makes absolutely no sense.
 
Stantec is 650,000 - so almost exactly half as big....so what's wrong with a 330,000 sq/ft building? Yeah it's stubby, but to all those that think this is not worthy.......it's worthy...

Compared to Nexen - medium sized energy co. in YYC only takes up 290,000 sq/ft in the Bow...now their old building sits empty...
 
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Does this show how rough the market is right now? That we're only building 16 story office buildings in the core of our downtown amongst 25-66floor towers? I wouldn't mind this elsewhere, but these feels sort of lame. I think 25flrs minimum is needed to "fit" this area. 16 will be one of our shortest modern office towers, right next to the tallest tower in western canada.

I'm sure this is motivated by the market/money, but it makes me nervous. I would have rather seen a 16flr tower in phase 2 as part of the "step down" to the northern neighbourhoods. Mixed feelings overall.
Agreed, While I like this better than the last couple of renders of their proposed residential tower, it's a far cry from what was in the original. Nice to have an all glass office building but this is pretty short and stumpy and doesn't look right in that location. Just flew over Doha a couple of days ago so seeing this bums me out a bit.
 
^^^^ Let's call this the "short and stubby" so that it has a colloquial, adorific (my word) handle. It will create a new impetus to get the 104th street Katz property in motion as well as taking us closer to a Phase II startup. If, on the 104th property we see a 40-storey residential tower, the visual balance will have been achieved and our sensibilities restored.
 
...this city has quite the documented long and unfortunate history of corporations leaving the city and public spats between councilors and corporation (see Jan Riemer and Shaw).

What happened between Mayor Reimer and Shaw if you don't mind elaborating.

I see Shaw just gifted Calgary's Glenbow Museum $35 million for an artist's program and to provide free admission to the museum forever.
 
I think a nice swoop on the roof top would pay dividends for how this building integrated into the curvy ice district. The taller towers can get away with being boxy, this one feels a little out of place.
 
What happened between Mayor Reimer and Shaw if you don't mind elaborating.

I see Shaw just gifted Calgary's Glenbow Museum $35 million for an artist's program and to provide free admission to the museum forever.
It was in the Globe article I posted in post 1,652 and will share the link again here:


The article speaks to how Shaw felt that Jan Riemer was hampering Shaw's growth and investment in Edmonton. At the time, Shaw was actively willing to invest in Edmonton's fiber optics network, they were interested in building a new head office downtown, and Jan Riemer and council were not interested in having both Shaw and TELUS (which was a recently merged company of Edmonton Telephone, aka Ed Tel and Alberta Government Telephones, aka AGT) battle for fiber optics investment in the city. Riemer and council elected to essentially leave fiber optic investment a monopoly to the newly formed Telus resulting in Shaw packing up and moving to Calgary, which was actively lobbying Shaw to move given the turmoil in Edmonton.

While I never did see this written anywhere, I heard that one Calgary council member commented at the time of Shaw's move to Calgary that the best advertising the city of Calgary could have is Edmonton (implying that all the anti-business council was only helping companies continue to choose Calgary). This was and has been the start of Edmonton having a reputation as a non business friendly city, especially when Calgary has been so successful luring and welcoming companies from Montreal (CP Rail), Imperial Oil (Toronto), Shaw (Edmonton), just to name a few.

Ironically, Telus moved its head office to Vancouver shortly after the merger of of Ed Tel and Telus leaving Edmonton without both Shaw or Telus, two homegrown telecom companies.

This trend has continued to today in which the city has seen a declining number of corporations actively looking to set up in Edmonton ( i.e. 25 HO in 2010 to 20 in 2020) and why I strongly believe that we have not seen a council or champion of business build strong relations with corporations to ensure that more corporations do not leave the city and to attract more corporations to the city.
 

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