Downtown Real Estate

[SimonCo]

judicial listing

Saw that a few months ago. I think it's been there for at least 3 months. What happened? I guess this is just for the office spaces up above and not the ground-level retails. Terrible location for offices.

 

[SimonCo]

Anyone known if 103st is getting redone sometime? This spot getting a great restaurant would be amazing.

With the ice district now, I’d love to see the stretch given more love. So many people use it to access rogers. Couple new condos have helped, LRT will help a bit more. We need CC Mall west rebuilt badly and then more trees, planters, and redone sidewalks/road.

Would be nice to see, but a lot of focus seems to go toward 104. When I got out of Oilers games last year, people would purposely avoid 103 and go down 104 instead, even if it was out of the way. 104 has seen an insane amount of traffic this year, really bustling. The farmers market has helped. It's hard for 103 to compete with that.

 

[IanO]

The few that are being finished are turned into rentals, like the Falcon. Once a condo is a rental, it will be a rental forever.

Untrue and as we have seen over the years going rental provides you flexibility when the market returns to condominiumize as an exit strategy with that asset, free up capital and do another project.

 

[IanO]

Saw that a few months ago. I think it's been there for at least 3 months. What happened? I guess this is just for the office spaces up above and not the ground-level retails. Terrible location for offices.

The previous owner over extended and went bankrupt (quite publicly actually). His various company's offices were up there and actually quite nice.

 

[Gronk!]

I thought there was supposed to be a brewpub opening in the El Beso space.

 

[cmd uw]

Always thought that this space would be IDEAL for a Deville coffee given the tenants/demo and look/feel.

100% concur....

 

[yeggator]

So after reading Ian’s post about the issue of gravel parking lots downtown, I was inspired to map out all the gravel parking lots and empty lots in the core of the city, as well as large paved parking lots and parkades. There’s another section called “Upcoming Developments” that is still a work in progress, and note that because the Google’s satellite imagery of Downtown is quite outdated, there might be a few mistakes.

Downtown Parking Lots
https://maps.app.goo.gl/PbQbgwqFbBkUPuHk8?g_st=ic

The map encompasses a large area of central Edmonton that goes beyond Downtown Proper (including Oliver and Boyle Street), and while I initially split up the core (kind of arbitrarily) into districts for my convenience while making the map, I decided to keep them there because they highlight some interesting patterns. Here’s what I noticed:

The Good:
- The actual Central Business District isn’t faring too badly in terms of empty lots and and paved parking. The main area of improvement would be street activation by increasing street-fronting retail. The parkades (especially by the mall) pose a challenge here, but they’re alright for now and do a key job of attracting suburbanites until we can improve the image of the LRT. The problem areas are mainly the north and south fringes, particularly Ice District Phase II and Stationlands, but at least there are promising proposals for these areas, especially now that Ice District has made this area much more lively.
- The Oliver area south of 104th Ave doesn’t have many gravel/undeveloped lots (those which exist are mostly off the main roads), and there are many projects underway here (which I didn’t get to map). There are a lot of asphalt lots though, particularly along Jasper Ave, which should be eventually be developed.
- In contrast to Oliver, the Brewery District north of 104th Ave has a lot of empty/gravel lots north of MacEwan, and large paved parking lots along 104th Ave. At least the architecture is nicer in the Brewery District, and there are a lot of developments underway here as well. Especially once the Valley Line is done, this area will see a lot of improvements.

The Bad:
- The Warehouse District just west of the CBD has a lot of gravel lots that are also prominently located by major roadways, on top of large paved parking lots. Warehouse Park and developments like the Parks Towers will dramatically transform the area, but there is still a lot of work to do here.
- The Government District/River crossing has a lot of empty grass lots, as opposed to gravel lots (although there’s one prominently in front of the Treasury building). This area is the first impression of downtown for many visitors, and it’s not a good one with these empty lots (and that’s on top of most of the buildings here being ugly concrete blocks). There aren’t many upcoming projects here either, despite this being a priority area to improve.

The Ugly:
- Chinatown is really bad. Lots of gravel lots here and the alleys are in horrible shape. There are also lots of vagrants in this area. The silver lining is that there are more businesses here (great restaurants and stuff) and it would be a nice cultural asset if we could clean up the drug and homeless crisis in this area.
- Alberta has the highest HDI in North America, but Boyle Street is literally a third-world slum. Mapping this area was just depressing. I’d say ~75% of it is giant gravel parking lots, and with most of the remainder being asphalt lots or rundown properties. And of course, these lots are full of unstable drug-addicts and vagrants, encampments, open fires and gang activity. I don’t know if there will ever be enough development in this area to replace these giant dead-zones, so I think we should consider building Warehouse Park 2.0 to help spur things along, but we’ll see no progress if we don’t address the drug and gang crisis. Honestly, I’m not too hopeful about the prospects of Boyle Street. It’s been a bad area for most of the city’s history and it has to compete with a lot of other areas in the core, TOD sites, and the suburbs to attract businesses and residents. It may evolve somewhat, but this will continue to be the epicentre of poverty and urban blight in Edmonton for the rest of the century.

 

[Canadian 001]

I've been saying this for a couple of years now. There's hardly any new condos being built. The few that are being finished are turned into rentals, like the Falcon. Once a condo is a rental, it will be a rental forever. There's been a surplus for a few years of luxury condos, thanks to the completions pre-covid of huge major downtown projects like Fox, Ultima, Encore, Legends and Stantec, but that inventory is starting to dry up and there's literally nothing else in the pipes. Definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Or its the Total Death of the Edmonton Condo Market?
Although maybe Condo Demand will Rise Drastically and Spark a Major Boom
Im hoping for the Latter
But After another 5-6 years so the wait is worth it

 

[policyenthusiast]

A letter from NAIOP to the Edmonton City Council:

Dear Members of City Council,

As representatives of the downtown commercial real estate community we are writing to
express our strong opposition to the proposed closure of multiple access points into downtown.
We believe that this decision will have significant negative impacts on the ongoing recovery
efforts downtown.

Impact on Business Operations and Downtown Recovery

The proposed closures will cause increased traffic congestion, making it more difficult for
newcomers and tourists to visit, commuters to work in-office, and potential customers to
reach businesses.

• This will result in fewer people downtown, harming businesses that are already struggling to recover from the economic impacts of recent events.
• Moreover, the closures will discourage potential new businesses from setting up int he downtown area due to accessibility concerns, further slowing the pace of recovery.
• Lastly, closures will lower the utilization and potentially selling prices of real estate, further damaging the assessed values and taxes coming from downtown, and increasing the tax burden on Edmonton residents.

Downtown is already faced with challenges – we should avoid adding a new challenge that is
within the City’s control.

Alternatives to the Proposed Closures

We strongly encourage you to consider other options in carrying on necessary repair and
renewal work.

1. Independent review of engineering reports: The City should seek a consolidated independent review of engineering reports to understand what work is essential and what work can be done over a longer period of time.
2. Network Analysis: Investing in road and public transit infrastructure improvements with a greater focus on allowing people to get to their destination quickly would help manage traffic flow more effectively. Simply put adding “as much as 15 to 30 minutes to trips from the suburbs” is not an acceptable solution.
3. Staggered Closures: If closures are necessary, implementing them in a staggered manner would minimize disruption. When combined with LRT construction, the City should have a policy of having the maximum of one major Centre City access point closed at any given time.

We urge the City Council to consider the significant negative impacts of the proposed closures on
downtown recovery, and these alternatives. We are more than willing to engage in further
discussions to find a solution that balances the needs of infrastructure maintenance, traffic
management and economic recovery.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

 

[Barnaby]

Grade separation of University Ave could be done prior to the bridge closures allowing for very high frequencies on the Metro and Capital Lines. Davies has alot of room for use during this time period.

 

[policyenthusiast]

Grade separation of University Ave could be done prior to the bridge closures allowing for very high frequencies on the Metro and Capital Lines. Davies has alot of room for use during this time period.

Interesting take, not sure how much this would affect ease of crossing the river with bridge closures though.

 

[BASE]

Grade separation of University Ave could be done prior to the bridge closures allowing for very high frequencies on the Metro and Capital Lines. Davies has alot of room for use during this time period.

Is grade separation inevitable at this intersection? Kind of feels like a no brainer.

 

[Barnaby]

Interesting take, not sure how much this would affect ease of crossing the river with bridge closures though.

I don't think crossing the river by car is going to be great at that point. I just think the faster alternative should be made as high capacity as possible before the bottlenecks occur.

I would like the city to kill two birds with one stone.

Accommodate the concerns you presented by improving the capacity of cross river travel per hour.

Make the needed upgrades to this crossing, which will only act as another bottleneck, possibly even during bridge closure time, if it's not shortly fixed.

 

[Avenuer]

Is grade separation inevitable at this intersection? Kind of feels like a no brainer.

Same with separation of the Metro Line over Kingsway and 111 Ave prior to it being extended north of the CNR Yards

 

[_urbanite]

FYI - approved august 19th. Curious to see if this will get some movement started on redevelopment along this side of 109 street

Wondering about the status of a rezoning application? Rezoning Applications in Your Neighbourhood