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Downtown

Urban Diner Sat. Morning was a surreal experience. The new towers, the abundance of cranes, greenery down the ave’s. Paint such a better picture of DT than what is perceived on Jasper Ave. I could so see ourselves moving there when we do downsize one day.
 
Bar raised Edmonton.
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^

you can't compare "architecture" without paying attention to pricing... it's a lovely project whether it's affordable housing or market housing but it's not cheap housing...

the $32.3M residential allocation of the project's total hard construction cost is $538k per unit. add say 15% for land and 15% for soft costs and those 60 small apartments cost $700k each noting that a good portion of the total project cost is being subsidized by the underlying bc hydro substation and by the school construction. it also has to be noted this doesn't allocate any municipal overheads and doesn't reflect the city's non-collection of any development levies (because it's "affordable housing").

you also have to look at what is considered "affordable housing" in the vancouver residential market. as of march of this year, the average cost to rent a one-bedroom apartment in vancouver is $2,239, while the average cost for a two-bedroom unit is $$3,050. anything rented at or below that average is deemed to be "affordable". it's also worth noting those are vancouver numbers, not coal harbour/west end numbers which i would think would be higher.

my guess is that if you could get those numbers in edmonton on either a sale or a rental basis, there wouldn't be any downtown gravel parking lots left.

the bar isn't set by design or demanding better design per se, it's set by dollars and we won't get what we're not prepared to pay for any more than vancouver or anywhere else gets anything for free.
 
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Nothing to do with architecture (although I do like it).

-Elementary School
-Child Care
-Affordable homes
-Rentals
-Family friendly units
-LEED Gold/PHC
all of those things fall into/are captured by the architecture.

but, putting that red herring aside, my point was still that we can easily have all of those things - either individually or collectively - if we are prepared to pay for them.

because, individually or collectively, we will get what we’re prepared to pay for. that’s the same bar we’ve always had and this project neither raises or lowers it.
 
It's less about paying for them and more about demanding/desiring them.
???

really???

so… you’ll develop them for me and i wouldn’t need to pay for them if i just demand/desire them enough and loudly enough???

somehow i think i know the answer to that.

what i don’t understand is how or why you think anyone else would give a different answer.
 
Yo, <insert property owner, property manager, COE or appropriate party name here>!!! Charlie Brown called. He wants his tree(s) back!!
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There are so many of these downtown right now. I know it’s easy to spend other people’s money but good gawd, if a tree dies replace it. Or at the minimum put it out of its misery and remove it. This isn’t complicated.
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and plant the tiny replacements in the fall so you can subject them to tons of salt and sand fines before they’ve established themselves and they’re at their weakest.

Out of curiosity, is anyone aware of a single median or sidewalk landscaping project that looks half decent two years after the contractors warranty period is up?

jasper, 99 st., 111 st., 122 st., 111 ave/mayfield road…
 

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