Iron Horse Line / Station Park | ?m | 6s | Beljan Development | Hodgson Schilf Evans

[Gronk!]

Not sure how we do it with gateway, arguably this project is a part of the solution. But I think it’s a real mental map for many. Gateway is the “end” of the whyte nightlife.

I wonder if apartments above this project would have been wise. More 81ave development. Redevelop the parking lots north of station park.

Transform that used car lot north of Whyte Ave into a mid-rise development (similar to the Hat nearby), then use the ground level CRUs to expand the Whyte Ave nightlife with a pub and live music venue. The public washroom and the streetcar terminal can remain as-is.

 

[archited]

I think one of the best solutions -- and it wouldn't be inexpensive but it would be transformational -- would be to depress Gateway starting from the 80th avenue intersection north and under Sask. drive with a new (less of a hairpin) access to the 105th Street bridge (in fact I would abandon the existing connector at QE Park Rd. altogether). With the road depressed the opportunity would present itself for branched-off UG parking along the way thereby reducing auto presence in large part. Pedestrian bridges could criss-cross the now-depressed roadway at points like "End of Steel Park", "Yardbird Suite", "OS Farmers' Market", "Strathcona Hotel", "Station Park" and the "Historic Railway Station". a very large UG parking structure could be accessed from the depressed roadway between 83rd and 85th Avenue on the east side of Gateway (perhaps tied into a mixed use development atop the parkade). Access ramps from the depressed roadway need only be provided at Sask. Drive. This would surely seam Old Strathcona into a much stronger pedestrian realm and allow for a significant eastward expansion of retail and hospitality.

 

[Out of Towner]

I think one of the best solutions -- and it wouldn't be inexpensive but it would be transformational -- would be to depress Gateway starting from the 80th avenue intersection north and under Sask. drive with a new (less of a hairpin) access to the 105th Street bridge (in fact I would abandon the existing connector at QE Park Rd. altogether). With the road depressed the opportunity would present itself for branched-off UG parking along the way thereby reducing auto presence in large part. Pedestrian bridges could criss-cross the now-depressed roadway at points like "End of Steel Park", "Yardbird Suite", "OS Farmers' Market", "Strathcona Hotel", "Station Park" and the "Historic Railway Station". a very large UG parking structure could be accessed from the depressed roadway between 83rd and 85th Avenue on the east side of Gateway (perhaps tied into a mixed use development atop the parkade). Access ramps from the depressed roadway need only be provided at Sask. Drive. This would surely seam Old Strathcona into a much stronger pedestrian realm and allow for a significant eastward expansion of retail and hospitality.

That is not a project that I would support. Gateway Boulevard north from 82nd Avenue is a nice stretch of road and if the park space on its east side is developed into park space as planed, it will become a very attractive area for development without hoping that economic activity in the area would improve by excavating it. The High Level bridge is nearing the end of its lifespan and replacing it would be a more impactful transformation project to the City's development than having Gateway Boulevard and Walterdale as the City's primary artery into downtown from the south. 109 Street is a much better north-south corridor as its more direct for most travel - particularly and presumably if two way traffic was restored. It wouldn't be a big stretch to suggest that the Province would pick up the tab for landscaping the west side of the legislative grounds to compliment a new bridge. So if the goal is to make the Gateway Boulevard and Whyte Avenue intersection - and Whyte Avenue for that matter - more walkable which I do support, then shift the traffic flow over to 109 Street by replacing the High Level bridge with a modern bridge that accommodates traffic flow better than the current arrangement.

 

[BrettB]

Personally not a fan of putting a freeway through the heart of the city.

 

[buildings]

Don't see why tax payers should shell out multi-millions to increase foot traffic to a cluster of small businesses.. not one penny. let the businesses themselves create the draw. Think this convo has gone to cloud cuckoo land.

 

[David A]

Don't see why tax payers should shell out multi-millions to increase foot traffic to a cluster of small businesses.. not one penny. let the businesses themselves create the draw. Think this convo has gone to cloud cuckoo cuckoo land.

I do feel bad that a lot has been invested in here, in something actually nice and it has not done better so far. I agree the heavy traffic on the two roads is a part of the problem.

However, this traffic was there before it was built, so the people who developed it went into it with their eyes wide open. We can't make expensive or big changes just to try help out a few businesses with a challenging location.

 

[MattPT]

I don’t think the road has much to do about it. Just wrong project for wrong location. Whyte has endless choices for different style and size of retail. This was too much too fast for the area. I never liked this one from the start. They were 5 years late on a concept I never really even enjoyed in other cities…They tried to build a little shopping centre in the only proper pedestrian friendly street in Edmonton. Look how whyte east of gateway is slowly filling in and becoming “cool”. People want the walking the street and exploring experience here.

 

[IanO]

It's also a statement about how and where folks prefer to shop/stroll and visit.

I've said this A LOT lately, but imagine if this area had 1%, yes ONE PERCENT of this region of 1.7 million people or 17,000 people/week made the conscious decision to make this their walking, shopping, eating and strolling street that are not doing that now.

Same for Downtown and 124st.

It's not about having it being a choice destination for everyone, but a rather moving the needle a SIGNIFICANT amount with by 1%.

 

[fromyeg]

If I were Beljan I’d be doing all I could to advocate for getting 80th Avenue connected. (Not sure the railway’s position on things at the moment.)

Proposed habitat greenway in the Scona District Plan. ^

I think the connection could greatly increase the amount of foot traffic and would be great for businesses both in the West Ritchie and Queen Alexandra (also for the increasing number of people living in the area making it easier to reach places on foot.)

I ran down 81st Ave this morning and I think the stretch between 105th and Gatway will be quite nice once the renewal and the first phase of The Hat is done. The single storey commercial building from the Hat development is looking good and it looks like they will be making improvements to the streetscape too. (Will try to get some pictures.)

Would be great to see better connectivity in the area and the area south of Whyte become more dense, have more business, be more walkable and generally more people friendly.

 

[Slitch]

There’s a couple of developments adjacent to Station Park that might see it benefit from some more proximal foot traffic in the somewhat distant future: Cook County’s expansion, street improvements west on 80th ave, Old Strathcona’s public realm strategy which will turn the area just north of Whyte into a “greenway” park/path. Better pedestrian connections south, near 81/80th ave, across gateway boulevard might help integrate the area a little more too. Especially for those poor retail spaces along gateway, all seemingly up for lease after one year.

Even then, I kinda think they’ve missed the mark with the Epic food hall concept… Been there a couple times now and I’m failing to see the vision, beyond maybe a corporate event space (which I think they’ve now mostly pivoted to). I remember Station Park originally being touted as an opportunity for new, emerging venders to break into the scene by offering relatively cheap “micro retail spaces”. And some of those spaces did actually work! DRTY Ice cream, a Filipino, small-batch ice cream store, which operates with usually one person in a 200sqft seacan, seemingly attracts more people than their marquee food hall!

I just don’t understand why they wouldn’t extend that thinking to Epic. Lease those spaces inside to new, interesting, emerging restauranteurs. Instead they opted for uniformly boring, generic food categories, brought to you by one chef…

 

[ntt1]

I feel like the First Street Food Hall in Calgary is what could have been - every time I'm there, it is usually quite busy or at least steady, and there are some great food options, which I think are independent. It does have residential on top and a patio/park out back, though. The closest equivalent for us would probably be the Bountiful Farmers' Market, but getting there without driving can be dicey/unpleasant.

 

[constance_chlore]

I've walked past this place a lot and thought about eating there, and I always end up feeling like there are better options. Don't get me wrong—I'm grateful that Beljan took a risk and built something—but it doesn't look very inviting, or in the spirit of what people want from Whyte. Words like "corporate" and "soulless" come to mind. Then again, I'm not really the target audience for a food hall; they seem best suited to a lunch/happy hour crowd for nearby office workers.

 

[archited]

I think one of the best solutions -- and it wouldn't be inexpensive but it would be transformational -- would be to depress Gateway starting from the 80th avenue intersection north and under Sask. drive with a new (less of a hairpin) access to the 105th Street bridge (in fact I would abandon the existing connector at QE Park Rd. altogether). With the road depressed the opportunity would present itself for branched-off UG parking along the way thereby reducing auto presence in large part. Pedestrian bridges could criss-cross the now-depressed roadway at points like "End of Steel Park", "Yardbird Suite", "OS Farmers' Market", "Strathcona Hotel", "Station Park" and the "Historic Railway Station". a very large UG parking structure could be accessed from the depressed roadway between 83rd and 85th Avenue on the east side of Gateway (perhaps tied into a mixed use development atop the parkade). Access ramps from the depressed roadway need only be provided at Sask. Drive. This would surely seam Old Strathcona into a much stronger pedestrian realm and allow for a significant eastward expansion of retail and hospitality.

Who's talking about freeways??? The current Gateway is a 3 lane highway already and one of the main downtown entry points coming by car (or bus) from YEG. I would reduce it to two thru-lanes with the rightmost lane separated as access to UG parking (a chance for Edmonton to join much of the rest of the world with automated parking and at the same time putting car convenience for Old Strathcona without them (the cars) taking up a sea of surface parking - as is the current situation). Also I would see a convenience ramp from the submerged roadway to access Saskatchewan Drive. I agree with @fromyeg's support for making 80th Avenue an alternate east-west crossing point (an alternative to Whyte). The car-free pedestrian bridges would then aid in promoting a walkable OS with the following features (and an access to Station Park is not front of mind here):
1. an unfettered Streetcar crossing over Gateway to its new terminus at Whyte conjoined with a wide pedestrian bridge that builds on the Tram feature rather than negating it;
2. the pedestrianization of the sidings of the Tram between Gateway and 104th Street up to and including Steel Wheels Park and for all of the land fronting and surrounding the Farmers' Market (as I mentioned on another thread I see this facility evolving into a 7-day event centre akin to the downtown L.A. Market with niche eateries, fresh produce and, if pedestrianized, a stopping place for outdoor pop-up kiosks and food trucks) -- the farmers market via the over-Gateway-pedestrian link would have convenience access to the UG parking (the area above the parkade preserved for a parklike-setting for a mixed use development that only Beljan, Rohit, and Cantiro are expert at creating;
3. a "cool" pedestrian link that dead-ends 81st Avenue across from the historic CPR station turning its front into a mini-park and removing the parking in front of CC Saloon to the 81Street, the CC front-piece adding to the park and when the weather allows enabling outdoor music events (I am sure that the original vision by Dale Cook and Barry Sparrow would be greatly honored since they were the pistons of the engine that began the transformation of Old Strathcona into the current day success that folks experience today).
4. another pedestrian link from the now mostly pedestrian alley behind the Strathcona Hotel to the east side of Gateway in prep for the rebirth of the Aerial Tram that, landing at Whyte, will conjoin two major travel modes -- Streetcar and Airship -- into a prominent focal point for Old Strathcona. I would like to see the Streetcar cross Whyte onto the CPKC "reserve" and eventually wind its way to the nascent Ritchie District rebirth and the Beer Ally that is developing there along 99th Street.

I see this as an investment in Old Strathcona as a whole and not serving any specific master (especially the automobile), particularly not any one developer.

 

[Out of Towner]

Lots of people in Edmonton still have the first nickel they ever earned and if you ask them to pay $18 for a hamburger and fries plus pay for parking, they're going to look for another place to go. PS: The parking meter in from of the Commercial Hotel doesn't work. Same goes for one in the convenience lane on south Gateway just off of Whyte.

 

[wormwood]

Who's talking about freeways??? The current Gateway is a 3 lane highway already and one of the main downtown entry points coming by car (or bus) from YEG. I would reduce it to two thru-lanes with the rightmost lane separated as access to UG parking (a chance for Edmonton to join much of the rest of the world with automated parking and at the same time putting car convenience for Old Strathcona without them (the cars) taking up a sea of surface parking - as is the current situation). Also I would see a convenience ramp from the submerged roadway to access Saskatchewan Drive. I agree with @fromyeg's support for making 80th Avenue an alternate east-west crossing point (an alternative to Whyte). The car-free pedestrian bridges would then aid in promoting a walkable OS with the following features (and an access to Station Park is not front of mind here):
1. an unfettered Streetcar crossing over Gateway to its new terminus at Whyte conjoined with a wide pedestrian bridge that builds on the Tram feature rather than negating it;
2. the pedestrianization of the sidings of the Tram between Gateway and 104th Street up to and including Steel Wheels Park and for all of the land fronting and surrounding the Farmers' Market (as I mentioned on another thread I see this facility evolving into a 7-day event centre akin to the downtown L.A. Market with niche eateries, fresh produce and, if pedestrianized, a stopping place for outdoor pop-up kiosks and food trucks) -- the farmers market via the over-Gateway-pedestrian link would have convenience access to the UG parking (the area above the parkade preserved for a parklike-setting for a mixed use development that only Beljan, Rohit, and Cantiro are expert at creating;
3. a "cool" pedestrian link that dead-ends 81st Avenue across from the historic CPR station turning its front into a mini-park and removing the parking in front of CC Saloon to the 81Street, the CC front-piece adding to the park and when the weather allows enabling outdoor music events (I am sure that the original vision by Dale Cook and Barry Sparrow would be greatly honored since they were the pistons of the engine that began the transformation of Old Strathcona into the current day success that folks experience today).
4. another pedestrian link from the now mostly pedestrian alley behind the Strathcona Hotel to the east side of Gateway in prep for the rebirth of the Aerial Tram that, landing at Whyte, will conjoin two major travel modes -- Streetcar and Airship -- into a prominent focal point for Old Strathcona. I would like to see the Streetcar cross Whyte onto the CPKC "reserve" and eventually wind its way to the nascent Ritchie District rebirth and the Beer Ally that is developing there along 99th Street.

I see this as an investment in Old Strathcona as a whole and not serving any specific master (especially the automobile), particularly not any one developer.

You get a lot of hate my man but you have a lot of good ideas. I respect you for having so much invested in a city you don't live in. Everything sounds good except for reducing lanes from 3 to 2. It just isn't practical.