Edmonton City Centre Mall (Renovations) | ?m | 2s | LaSalle Investment Management

[Gronk!]

An IKEA City in the old Bay space at ECC is an excellent idea! Not only would it be a license to print money, but it will draw many patrons from all over the metro Edmonton region who want to avoid the rancid hellhole known as South Edmonton Common.

 

[Markyeg]

Not a chance DT gets an IKEA anytime soon. DT Vancouver has 10x the population as DT Edmonton and doesn’t even have one.

 

[Gus Haynes]

A night at the movies inside downtown's failing mall

It's Halloween, and five 7pm-ish screenings at Landmark Cinemas inside Edmonton City Centre have mostly sold a quantity of tickets that can be counted on two hands. The only proper horror movie on this day of days for horror movies is Shelby Oaks, and it has just one paying viewer: Me.

edmonton.taproot.news

I wanna circle back to this article because I think it doesn't capture some of the success that ECC Landmark has had in recent times. You may notice that they're devoting more and more of their screening time to foreign-language films, and many of these have really put butts in the seats. Get a load of today's 3:45pm screening of Chaniya Toli, a Gujarati-language film:

Yeah, that's their second biggest screen with almost all of the best seats sold out. It's not necessarily like this for every movie, or every showing, but it shows that the theatre can still draw crowds with the right movies.

 

[David A]

An IKEA City in the old Bay space at ECC is an excellent idea! Not only would it be a license to print money, but it will draw many patrons from all over the metro Edmonton region who want to avoid the rancid hellhole known as South Edmonton Common.

Because of its location, the current IKEA really only serves half of the city or so. I am not far north, but I seldom go way down to South Edmonton Common and the last time I was there, I did not go to IKEA, but only one other store.

More so than most other cities, there now is also a very big gap in downtown Edmonton retail for affordable furnishing and home items. Structube who I did buy furniture from before, left several years ago during COVID I think.

 

[archited]

I know from my own IKEA sources that they have been looking for a more central location in Edmonton for some time. The Bay location would seem to be ideal, especially with VLW coming to the area as well.

 

[Markyeg]

If Edmonton got a second IKEA, the next logical place would be somewhere in North Edmonton. There is ZERO chance we get a DT location anytime soon.

 

[archited]

^ Not ZERO, according to an upper level (international) manager that I have been talking with at IKEA.

 

[David A]

Another advantage of a downtown location like what is being discussed, is it could be smaller than the current one and so not require as big of an investment.

Yes, I suppose they could just build another huge suburban location on the opposite side of the city, similar to what they have in the south, but the Edmonton market is not big enough for that yet and may not be for a while.

 

[archited]

They are talking about a selective IKEA that would primarily cater to youthful shoppers that are renters on the downtown apartment scene; they have also been talking about creating an indigenous art scene as a component of that kind of store.

 

[Markyeg]

They are talking about a selective IKEA that would primarily cater to youthful shoppers that are renters on the downtown apartment scene; they have also been talking about creating an indigenous art scene as a component of that kind of store.

Demographics that also exist in DT Montreal and Vancouver, which don’t have urban format IKEAs, even though their DTs both have 10x the population ours does.

 

[archited]

^ I should connect you with my IKEA contact so you can tell him how foolish he is being for even considering downtown Edmonton -- a city that compared to the two cities you offer up is growing at a much, much faster rate and has both cheaper lease rates and land prices currently.

 

[Markyeg]

^ I should connect you with my IKEA contact so you can tell him how foolish he is being for even considering downtown Edmonton -- a city that compared to the two cities you offer up is growing at a much, much faster rate and has both cheaper lease rates and land prices currently.

At the same time connect me with your “source” who was adamant that the 80-storey Quarters tower was getting built.

 

[JuliallThat]

Although a smaller format urban Ikea downtown would be cool, I think I'd rather have a second fully featured Ikea somewhere on the north-side even if it's not downtown.
If downtown wants something hardware-esque it would probably be better served by a Canadian Tire or Home Hardware imo.

 

[David A]

Downtown Montreal and Vancouver also already have other and more retail options that we do, which IKEA may be aware of. I suspect they are not only looking at the size of the market, but what else is there.

 

[David A]

Although a smaller format urban Ikea downtown would be cool, I think I'd rather have a second fully featured Ikea somewhere on the north-side even if it's not downtown.
If downtown wants something hardware-esque it would probably be better served by a Canadian Tire or Home Hardware imo.

It does not have to be one of the other, Canadian Tire or Home Hardware sells much different things than IKEA. I also go to Canadian Tire less now that they moved further south, however their Kingsway location is not too far away.