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Downtown Real Estate

CaptainBL said:
Agreed, I am very interested to see how/IF Edmonton implements its own ambitious strategy that is much much needed. As I have said many times, Edmonton needs a proper strategy to attract business and jobs, whether head office or not, to Edmonton and downtown. We have our own vacancy problems from the past few years, never mind new growth challenges attracting new jobs and corps to downtown. So if Edmonton doesnt respond, it will be more of the same. Calgary always used its corporate prowess to attract companies to its downtown, and is now using its weakness (high vacancy) as a strength strategy.

As a side note, if seeing the Minister of Jobs, Economy and Innovation chair a pro-Calgary group does not indicate that Calgary is Alberta's city then I don't know what else will.
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Attract companies as in all of those "call center" jobs they just brought over from Bangalore? Does no one see the irony in these new fancy IT jobs they are bragging about bringing in? We all know that IT jobs were scuttlebutted to Bangladesh et all back in the day, NOW they are bringing those same minimum wage jobs back to YYC - they can have them. We'll take those 2500 construction jobs and 100's of operations jobs when that new Hydrogen plant is built. So no, the sky over YEG is not falling.....lol
 
^ agreed.

i've always said we need to stop selling edmonton "because it's cheap in edmonton". no-one cares that it's cheap.

i want edmonton to be really, really expensive (okay, i'll happily settle for only one "really") because that means we'll have done enough things right for people to really want to be here.

we'll never even win being cheap because there will always be someplace else cheaper. being cheap means you have nothing of value for people to invest either their time or their money in.
 
occidentalcapital said:
enough Calgary already. please and thanks. If readers are supposed to get a specifc bit of information out of this, can you provide this to us rather than just posting reports from calgary. Merci.
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It's important for Edmonton (or any city for that matter) to see what their nearest competitors are up to, doing and who is around the table. This is being done in parallel to something we are working on and allows one to hear some interesting perspectives on how to approach the complex challenge of a Downtown recovery. It is directly related to what we are talking about and often allows others to discover these kinds of industry specific panels that they might not otherwise come across. If you don't find it interesting or valuable to you, don't click on it.
 
bodsbods9090 said:
Yeah, Calgary has it's own board to post on. I'm worried about what EDMONTON is doing, not Calgary.
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It's hard to validate, measure, compare metrics (both positive and negative) and establish those KPIs out there if you are only looking in the mirror.
 
I don't think being cheaper wins the argument, but when you are making the case for attracting businesses I do think you do want to note any advantages you have. However, it is interesting that some of the places that people complain about being so expensive like San Fransisco, nearby Silicon Valley and here in Canada, Toronto and Vancouver seem to have done just fine attracting businesses despite higher costs. Although with work from anywhere, I sense that may be changing a bit. Still, the anywhere places that seem most likely to benefit are those that are attractive, but less expensive. I think part of the problem in Edmonton is we are not very much geared towards tourism, so we don't really think about what things here may be or may not be attractive to people from elsewhere. A city that did that, would not have a train station in the middle of nowhere and a river valley destination that was developed and not a semi abandoned industrial site. BTW Winnipeg did better on this, so perhaps we can too.

As for the endless comparisons focusing only on the city to the south, I don't think they are always helpful. There are differences that make some things more feasible or work better in one place than in the other. If anything I think they have had more to learn from us. For instance, we had the LRT first, were developing housing downtown years before them and well our downtown arena has been open for several years now. Sometimes, they have taken what was done here and rather than just copying it, have improved on it (like with LRT). Perhaps if you are going to copy, that is a better approach.
 
IMG_4643.jpg


McDougall-101st-scaled.jpg

rcedm.ca

McDougall Development Opportunity - RE/MAX Commercial Capital - Edmonton Commercial Real Estate

Property Highlights Unique development opportunity on the historic McDougall United Church site in downtown Edmonton. Plan a first class, multi-use development while earning an income from the current parking users. The property can be sub-divided or flexible options for rental and/or shared use...
rcedm.ca
 
@IanO, very interesting.
My first thought was "leave the church alone". Upon some silent contemplation, my feelings turned to - this is progress and could be stunning. We just can't have any low-quality uninspired design. It has to be top quality and modern beauty, and it's got to happen in our lifetime.
Amen
 
So the church gets what, $13 million (or was it $30 million?) for a restoration from the city a few years ago, then a few years later puts the building and land up for sale in which they'll make a tidy profit from? Pretty rich deal for a institution that doesn't pay any taxes
 
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Grandinite said:
So the church gets what, $13 million (or was it $30 million?) for a restoration from the city a few years ago, then a few years later puts the building and land up for sale in which they'll make a tidy profit from? Pretty rich deal for a institution that doesn't pay any taxes
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I had to look this up because the city providing $13M or more for a church restoration seemed like a lot.

So I found this. The city provided $500k and the province $750k in a grant for some restoration work in 2016 and it received heritage designation in 2015.
Prior to this, the church proposed the city buy it for $1 and then lease it back to church, but then this money came through. At that time the land was valued at $7M.

Now maybe additional money was provided after that but this is all I could find. In the article it does say the church was trying to raise $15M for full restoration. Don't know the city ever gave more. Do you know for sure the city gave something like $13M?

www.google.com

Thank heavens, long-awaited work begins on Edmonton's historic McDougall United Church

Construction that will help save Edmonton's historic McDougall United Church from ruin began Monday.
www.google.com www.google.com
 
In Los Angeles, some hard-pressed churches are doing something similar whereby they share the communion hall space with other organizations and look for more intensive use of their properties with condos and the like on parking surfaces, selling off the project with use caveats in place. Expect to see more of this while church attendance remains in decline.
 
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TAS said:
Will be interesting to see which side comes out on top on this one - City Centre Mall or The Bay.

edmontonsun.com

Edmonton City Centre Mall, Hudson's Bay Co. in lawsuit over rent, COVID measures

Edmonton’s downtown mall and one of its largest former tenants are locked in a legal battle over rent money and the shopping centre’s response to COVID-19.
edmontonsun.com edmontonsun.com
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I’m no lawyer but to me HBC does not have much of a case. Failing to rent retail space during a pandemic when countless retailers are going out of business? That’s pretty rich.
 
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