Connect Centre | 56.3m | 16s | ONE Properties | DIALOG

What do you think of this project?

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Edmcowboy11 said:
It may not be a hotel but 35 floors of residential sounds pretty good to me. This is what we need more and more in the downtown. Hopefully with this new tower the surrounding area again will see more businesses, services that are geared to people who live nearby. I'm pretty certain that City Market is very happy about this as that will eventually add a whole lot more customers who can simply go downstairs and buy groceries.
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We need both.
 
I don't know if I would categorize it as Katz bailing on the project--it's a very common strategy in development to plan, build, stabilize tenancy, and sell/exit, even on multi-phase projects (MacLab is looking to do the same with The Parks). I think we're all disappointed in the public amenity package delivered, but consider that we already got the hardest part done: getting the buildings built. Despite the disinteresting landscape of banks and shelled spaces, there is still immense long term potential for when demand and financial underwriting makes sense to do build out those amenities.

In the mean time, it's pretty clear why we didn't get most of these amenities for anyone who spends time around downtown. Most evenings when I walked around downtown, it's still not uncommon to see more homeless folks and those bent-on-fent than average people. You cannot expect businesses to open up downtown purely out of their own charitable spirit or to satisfy people's unrealistic dreams of what should be there when the reality is day time foot traffic is mediocre, evening foot traffic sucks, and weekend foot traffic is even worse outside of events.

I mean hell, consider that City Centre was still a halfway decent mall when ICE District started construction and now it's a hollowed out zombie limping its way through receivership. That's just one indicator of how much things have changed in the past decade after (insert list of bad things hampering this development since inception that we've all read on this site 500 times).
 
^ You are correct
$68.2 million is the estimated project cost of public infrastructure site servicing for the Village. $3 million is being contributed by OEG Sports & Entertainment, $33.8 million by the City of Edmonton and $31.4 million is being contributed by the Government of Alberta”

But please understand the city plays a roll to develop and maintain its underground infrastructure. Other jurisdictions may force the developer to pay for all or more of this but those jurisdictions are also having issues with necessary infrastructure cost adding 200k to the price of a home and financed via residential mortgages at a consumer mortgage interest rate.

One can argue that financing through the city, at city interest rates is more cost effective and builds in a tax base for future maintenance.
 
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^ For clarification it says One went bankrupt, and Integro has a number of ex One Employees.

Its not uncommon for high level employees to also bring a team with them. Im sure having a person with detailed site knowledge was beneficial to Integro. This all seems pretty par for the course in the development world, at least to me.
 
Edmcowboy11 said:
It may not be a hotel but 35 floors of residential sounds pretty good to me. This is what we need more and more in the downtown. Hopefully with this new tower the surrounding area again will see more businesses, services that are geared to people who live nearby. I'm pretty certain that City Market is very happy about this as that will eventually add a whole lot more customers who can simply go downstairs and buy groceries.
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I believe before this briefly turned into a potential office building project, it was originally intended to be residential so this is really a return to that.

If this does happen I feel ICE District will be a nice mix of office, hotel space and residential, somewhat bank heavy, but more residential could also help bring in more variety of other retail, dining and entertainment
 
Screenshot 2026-02-01 at 7.11.47 AM.png
 

This algins with Wiikwemkong’s vision for the property, with current plans calling for a 35-storey residential tower developed in partnership with former ONE Properties CEO Darren Durstling, now president of Edmonton-based Integro Investments.

ONE Properties filed for bankruptcy shortly after listing Connect Centre, and another one of its properties, the Paramount Theatre, has since entered receivership. Several of ONE Properties’ former staff are now with Integro.

Connect Centre attracted more offers than the listing team anticipated, including offers for only the retail component, offers for only the development rights, and offers for both. He also said he found it notable how many investors from Eastern Canada made offers.
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“………plan to move quickly to build a 35 storey tower……”
“…….350-375 units….”

renx.ca

Ontario First Nation group buys Edmonton's Connect Centre

An Ontario-based First Nations group which has purchased Edmonton’s Connect Centre - one of the city’s most prominent downtown mixed-use properties - has plans to move quickly on a major residential expansion at the site.
renx.ca renx.ca
 
350+ units seems ambitious for 35 storeys unless they're planning on bringing a taste of Toronto to this development in the form of 300 sqft broom closets studio apartments.

For reference, Falcon I is well endowed in terms of girth and it only has ~230 units in 27 floors of residential (excluding the podium).
 
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