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Downtown Real Estate

Well in my experience I never witnessed a commercial property landlord reduce their lease rates. As I mentioned a long time ago, I remember when my lease was up at Bonnie Doon a number of businesses had just closed or moved out but yet they insisted that my lease rate was going to increase. No incentives, no sign of new businesses moving in but my lease would still go up.
 
Edmcowboy11 said:
Well in my experience I never witnessed a commercial property landlord reduce their lease rates. As I mentioned a long time ago, I remember when my lease was up at Bonnie Doon a number of businesses had just closed or moved out but yet they insisted that my lease rate was going to increase. No incentives, no sign of new businesses moving in but my lease would still go up.
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i have no intention whatsoever of disputing your experience but i can tell you from my own experience on the other side that landlords will reduce their lease rates as long as the "net effective return" on their doing so is greater than the alternative. i also remember when that "greater than the alternative" ended up subsidizing tenants to occupy space because a partial recovery of opex was better than subsidizing 100% of the opex on vacant space.
 
Oilers99 said:
it throws off the cap rate of the space which can mess up the valuation for lending or vending purposes
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I was just going to say (plus numerous other reasons)

As backwards as it is, it’s sometimes preferable to have unleased space than space leased for cheap by low grade tenants

Someone posted an interesting article regarding this a little while back, if I wasn’t on my phone I’d find it.
 
The City Market and Warehouse Park cannot come soon enough, but neither really matter if we cannot find a way to make Downtown safer.

As the article mentions, the continuous stress, impact and real personal safety concerns many of us have to deal with are simply driving people out and significantly impacting decision making for potential/future residents.

While it is encouraging to see multiple stakeholders working towards improving safety/security, the general lack of any attention or commitment to the residential areas of the Downtown is disheartening.

As mentioned many times, our neighbourhood has never been so plagued with crime, B&Es, people ODing in our lobby or vestibule, or damage to property in and around our building. Our condo board is spending a lot of money as a result when we would rather be putting that towards rising utility prices. This will directly lead to increases in condo fees, if not special assessments in many buildings and diminish the value proposition of these units to both live in and or invest in.

I have always been a strong advocate for living Downtown, that it was safe for my sister to live and explore as a single person (back in the day), that it is more family friendly than people believe, that it is a great place for active seniors and yet right now I am not sure I would recommend it to anyone; that's a sad statement.
 
IanO said:
The City Market and Warehouse Park cannot come soon enough, but neither really matter if we cannot find a way to make Downtown safer.

As the article mentions, the continuous stress, impact and real personal safety concerns many of us have to deal with are simply driving people out and significantly impacting decision making for potential/future residents.

While it is encouraging to see multiple stakeholders working towards improving safety/security, the general lack of any attention or commitment to the residential areas of the Downtown is disheartening.

As mentioned many times, our neighbourhood has never been so plagued with crime, B&Es, people ODing in our lobby or vestibule, or damage to property in and around our building. Our condo board is spending a lot of money as a result when we would rather be putting that towards rising utility prices. This will directly lead to increases in condo fees, if not special assessments in many buildings and diminish the value proposition of these units to both live in and or invest in.

I have always been a strong advocate for living Downtown, that it was safe for my sister to live and explore as a single person (back in the day), that it is more family friendly than people believe, that it is a great place for active seniors and yet right now I am not sure I would recommend it to anyone; that's a sad statement.
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I came back to do some renos to my condo after my tenant abandoned it (renting if anyone's interested) and I've seen marginal improvements from the last time I was there. The City of Edmonton really needs to consult with the City of Surrey and the province of British Columbia as both downtowns face similar issues, but within years I have seen Surrey move leaps and bounds in handling it's issues to the point of not being in the conversation for downtown crime and chaos.

Really, it comes to finding the resources and funding housing initiatives that go beyond the downtown core. We need to improve funding and decentralize homeless initiatives. It would be far easier for the problems that come with the homeless to be managed if we could distribute those problems evenly amongst different police districts and across different community services all around the city. On top of this, it would make it far more difficult for dealers to prey on the homeless and the mentally ill, as they wouldn't have a concentration of clientele to sell crack or meth too - making their dealings less economic.

I'm doing a lot of research into these matters because they hit close to home. I once dated someone who regressed into schizophrenia, and I tend to view these people as society's dependents. They were given a difficult hand in life and need support and to not be abandoned. Leaving them on the streets to be preyed on by meth dealers and the climate is no different in my eyes then abandoning children on the streets to fend for themselves against the same issues.

They need more support, and enforcement needs to more actively participate in finding them help and enforcing that help onto them regardless of if these people want it or not in that particular manic moment. This must be done instead of perpetuating the revolving door phenomena of locking them up overnight and letting them go the next day.

So much can be done, and yet so much apathy at the first two levels of government.
 
Stevey_G said:
I came back to do some renos to my condo after my tenant abandoned it (renting if anyone's interested) and I've seen marginal improvements from the last time I was there. The City of Edmonton really needs to consult with the City of Surrey and the province of British Columbia as both downtowns face similar issues, but within years I have seen Surrey move leaps and bounds in handling it's issues to the point of not being in the conversation for downtown crime and chaos.

Really, it comes to finding the resources and funding housing initiatives that go beyond the downtown core. We need to improve funding and decentralize homeless initiatives. It would be far easier for the problems that come with the homeless to be managed if we could distribute those problems evenly amongst different police districts and across different community services all around the city. On top of this, it would make it far more difficult for dealers to prey on the homeless and the mentally ill, as they wouldn't have a concentration of clientele to sell crack or meth too - making their dealings less economic.

I'm doing a lot of research into these matters because they hit close to home. I once dated someone who regressed into schizophrenia, and I tend to view these people as society's dependents. They were given a difficult hand in life and need support and to not be abandoned. Leaving them on the streets to be preyed on by meth dealers and the climate is no different in my eyes then abandoning children on the streets to fend for themselves against the same issues.

They need more support, and enforcement needs to more actively participate in finding them help and enforcing that help onto them regardless of if these people want it or not in that particular manic moment. This must be done instead of perpetuating the revolving door phenomena of locking them up overnight and letting them go the next day.

So much can be done, and yet so much apathy at the first two levels of government.
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I might be interested, depending on size/location. Hit me with a DM
 
I am attaching a survey completed by realtor.com taken across the U.S. -- there is no reason to think that the same results wouldn't be closely matched by Canada.
There are several trends that go counter to the thinking of many on this site and so I am going to quote a few items from the report to highlight current moves.
“As millennials transitioned from one stage of life to the next, their preferences shifted from renting in urban downtowns to buying in the suburbs,” says Ratiu. “These trends started before the COVID pandemic but accelerated as health concerns, social distancing, and remote work became the norm. Due to the sheer size of the [generation], millennials are the dominant demographic group in today’s housing market.”
With prices hitting new highs and many sales going for well over the asking price, buyers were wealthier with a median household income of $102,000.00

https://www.realtor.com/news/trends...y_NL-blog1whosbuyingallthehouses-blogs_trends
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archited said:
I am attaching a survey completed by realtor.com taken across the U.S. -- there is no reason to think that the same results wouldn't be closely matched by Canada.
There are several trends that go counter to the thinking of many on this site and so I am going to quote a few items from the report to highlight current moves.
“As millennials transitioned from one stage of life to the next, their preferences shifted from renting in urban downtowns to buying in the suburbs,” says Ratiu. “These trends started before the COVID pandemic but accelerated as health concerns, social distancing, and remote work became the norm. Due to the sheer size of the [generation], millennials are the dominant demographic group in today’s housing market.”
With prices hitting new highs and many sales going for well over the asking price, buyers were wealthier with a median household income of $102,000.00
Click to expand...
I think everyone is aware of this trend, it's all we've been hearing about for the last couple of years.
 
^^^^ The point is -- in order to make downtown living more attractive, condos have to be exceptional in terms of design and amenities -- price is less significant -- experiences have to be powerful and plentiful -- parks cannot be passive -- restaurants and retail have to be exceptional in terms of offerings and presentation. All points that I have been trying to stress all along.
 
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1519892556464615425
 
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