Grandin Tower 2 | 113.99m | 36s | Westrich Pacific | Chris Dikeakos

What do you think of this project?

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thommyjo said:
Can anyone help me understand how Calgary got multiple huge towers started the last few years and yet their rents are declining and not much higher than ours currently, yet we can’t get anything beyond stick frame cheapos?

We need Truman up here.
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I talked about this in another thread so it might be somewhat redundant, but the short answer is that it's a simple case of dollars and cents. Concrete highrises in Edmonton are a challenge financially.

Calgary's rents might have been declining at the time of your post, I don't know Calgary's rates, but developers, especially the larger institutional developers, and REITs don't care about rent declines in a particular quarter, etc.. they are looking at 20 years out, and they look at the rental market for the past 20 years.
Calgary's highrise rental market consistently fetches around 15-25% more than Edmonton's high rise market and has for the past 30 years. Developers are betting it will be that way for the next 20. It's also not so much about the extra rental revenue, it's that a Calgary building will likely be worth 15-25% more in 20 years.

It's not a case of developers having anything personal against Edmonton, only a case of people running numbers through a calculator. 47 high-rises have been built, or are u/c in Calgary over the past 4 years, and most of them have been built by out of town developers. Vancouver developers, like Bucci, Amble, Bossa, Gracorp, Cressey. Others like Cadillac Fairview, Slokker, Hines, Western Securities, GWL. Even some from Edmonton. One Properties has built a few towers in Calgary recently, and recently broke ground on another. Cantiro, which I believe is an Edmonton based developer is breaking ground on a tower first week of May. Calgary based Truman is building 5 or 6 high-rises, and proposing more but it's almost all Ontario money.
 
Jhawk said:
I talked about this in another thread so it might be somewhat redundant, but the short answer is that it's a simple case of dollars and cents. Concrete highrises in Edmonton are a challenge financially.

Calgary's rents might have been declining at the time of your post, I don't know Calgary's rates, but developers, especially the larger institutional developers, and REITs don't care about rent declines in a particular quarter, etc.. they are looking at 20 years out, and they look at the rental market for the past 20 years.
Calgary's highrise rental market consistently fetches around 15-25% more than Edmonton's high rise market and has for the past 30 years. Developers are betting it will be that way for the next 20. It's also not so much about the extra rental revenue, it's that a Calgary building will likely be worth 15-25% more in 20 years.

It's not a case of developers having anything personal against Edmonton, only a case of people running numbers through a calculator. 47 high-rises have been built, or are u/c in Calgary over the past 4 years, and most of them have been built by out of town developers. Vancouver developers, like Bucci, Amble, Bossa, Gracorp, Cressey. Others like Cadillac Fairview, Slokker, Hines, Western Securities, GWL. Even some from Edmonton. One Properties has built a few towers in Calgary recently, and recently broke ground on another. Cantiro, which I believe is an Edmonton based developer is breaking ground on a tower first week of May. Calgary based Truman is building 5 or 6 high-rises, and proposing more but it's almost all Ontario money.
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Yes, higher rents likely do attract more construction, although I would be cautious about predicting current trends 20 years in the future. Interestingly, migration to Edmonton has been quite strong too, so it is not just that a lot more people going to Calgary.

If anything, fundamentally it is probably the considerably higher cost of housing in Calgary that is leading to more demand there for high rise rentals and condos, which then leads to higher rents and condo prices. However, as can be seen in the GTA and GVA, prices can only go so high and there is only so much people can or will bear. With recent declines it looks like Calgary may have reached its maximum also, so perhaps those 20 year projections should take that into account too.
 
Edmonton is growing. Just not enough jobs downtown to entice more people to live in new highrise towers.

High earners in Edmonton working in the energy sector are the blue collar type vs those in Calgary who want to be close to their office buildings. Just a different set of demographics. Someone wanting to spend money on a big truck vs someone wanting to spend more money on a condo/apartment to walk to their office.

For 30 years, Edmonton has been bleeding corporate jobs and has been struggling to attract or keep those jobs. Think of Telus as an example.
 
whattheheck said:
^And successive council after council does not seem to care.
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We have no one to blame but ourselves.

We continuously elect the same type of progressive politicians as mayor and to council that don't focus enough on attracting new companies and jobs to this city
 
MakeYEGGreatAgain said:
For 30 years, Edmonton has been bleeding corporate jobs and has been struggling to attract or keep those jobs. Think of Telus as an example.
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Yup, TELUS effectively moved its head office away from Edmonton following its merger with BC Telecom on January 31, 1999.

Business-minded, city booster, right wing mayor Bill Smith was leader from 1995-2004. Followed by business-minded Stephen Mandel from 2004-2013. Not sure how many corporate, downtown office jobs we created downtown during those times.

One of the best decisions was getting MacEwan University downtown under Jan Reimer's term I believe (late 80s, early 90s decision was made?).

I'm not meaning to make this a left or right thing - I think it's very challenging for any municipal government in our city.
 
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_urbanite said:
We have no one to blame but ourselves.

We continuously elect the same type of progressive politicians as mayor and to council that don't focus enough on attracting new companies and jobs to this city
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Yes, and there was also the decision to sell our city telephone company to Telus, before that when there should have been a rock solid commitment to keep the head office here.

As the saying goes, mistakes were made, but perhaps overall the biggest was not realizing the importance of keeping or attracting head office jobs.

I feel that was more a problem with certain mayors more than others, but really I'm not sure very many have been great in this regard and now we are seeing the results of decades of this oversight and neglect.
 
whattheheck said:
^And successive council after council does not seem to care.
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I wouldn't point the finger just at recent councils given 70+ years for tax revenue and design considerations (a la demolition and surface level parking) have profoundly changed Edmonton. I'd argue the councillors of distant past likely did far more damage than the current lot.
 
devobersver said:
I wouldn't point the finger just at recent councils given 70+ years for tax revenue and design considerations (a la demolition and surface level parking) have profoundly changed Edmonton. I'd argue the councillors of distant past likely did far more damage than the current lot.
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Agreed and likely anyone serving on those councils in those days would have done something similar. Many people wanted (and still do) more parking downtown and for their drive to be as fast and easy as possible while downtown.

Of course, streets that are quick to drive through and have lots of parking, is the opposite of what you want for vibrant streets.
 
TAS said:
Agreed and likely anyone serving on those councils in those days would have done something similar. Many people wanted (and still do) more parking downtown and for their drive to be as fast and easy as possible while downtown.

Of course, streets that are quick to drive through and have lots of parking, is the opposite of what you want for vibrant streets.
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There were all those surface parking lots because there was no demand for building new office towers here for 20 or 30 years and the street were designed for a city where it was expected there would be more growth in jobs downtown, not decades of stagnation.
 
Office developments are not the "be-all" and "end-all"-for E... there are 3,762 other possibilities... expand the scope... think BIG!
 
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