Downtown Real Estate

[Avenuer]

Oliver is now cool to people with influence. You'll run into hockey WAGS at places like OEX during the day. 97s fiancé opened her business in the area too.
Gentrification is going to hit this area like a freight train, though.

In some ways a financial scramble for central real estate is needed in this city.

Gentrification in certain areas of the city is definnitely not a bad thing - every city needs that to some degree. It is just when the entire city gentrifies where property values increase to a degree where regular folks can no longer live comfortably, which is the issue.

 

[Barnaby]

Gentrification in certain areas of the city is definnitely not a bad thing - every city needs that to some degree. It is just when the entire city gentrifies where property values increase to a degree where regular folks can no longer live comfortably, which is the issue.

I thinks it's fine for a while, Oliver will just continue see more density, but that has been the history of the area since it was built. ZBR definitely helps with maintaining affordability in the near future.

Back to Downtown Edmonton, I don't understand the lack of row housing in the core. Is this a developer issue? A zoning issue? These row houses are now selling at high prices in the city but they remain absent in the core for some reason.

See Midtown St.Albert, Blatchford, the Rossdale Townhomes for loose examples. Can you even build a freehold Brooklyn style townhouse in this city? This is a product I want to buy in the core.

 

[jason403]

With 15 minute cities, downtown becomes less relevant. It's still important, but only one node of many. As density and traffic increase downtown, this does help localized demand, however pushes external demand to more outlying areas.

I believe this is in line with what is currently being observed in the suburban periphery and prevalence of power centers.

 

[dunno]

10 years with the right city council. Most of DT Edmonton is largely unrecognizable from 10 years ago, when Whyte was the only destination in the city's core.

I mean... 10 years ago
- City Centre was more of a destination if you were in the area (not a regional draw like Kingsway up the road, but still)
- Had a downtown grocery store right on Jasper Ave in proximity to both new builds and existing high-density residential, rather than Loblaw's on the frontier
- BMO lot wasn't a gigantic pit
- No Battleship Library
- 104th Street had more momentum with the market

I do agree that overall downtown has improved, despite the setbacks over the past few years. But I don't know if, aside from the Ice District, it's more of a draw for suburbanites than a decade ago. 124th Street and West Oliver are more of a destination outside of work and Oilers. But still none of them hold a candle to Strathcona. We haven't seen the levelling up of secondary nodes like other cities have.

 

[thommyjo]

Who is coming into downtown on 107-106 St to see that, really? The similarly sized 'hole' on 105th St between Omega and the Provincial and Land Titles building is much more visible and probably what you're thinking about for coming up the hill. Especially when there's two smaller lots on the east side of 105th St (between the Comfort Inn and The Madison and on 100th/105th NEC).

That being said, it should still be filled in.

You’re right sorry. Mixing up my desolate, bleak holes in our downtown haha. Wish there weren’t multiples to mix up.

 

[David A]

Gentrification in certain areas of the city is definnitely not a bad thing - every city needs that to some degree. It is just when the entire city gentrifies where property values increase to a degree where regular folks can no longer live comfortably, which is the issue.

Some of this happens naturally, for instance as the city grows living more centrally becomes appealing for some who don't want long travel time, particularly in places like Oliver, Bonnie Doon, Old Strathcona. Some older homes are renovated or replaced, new multi family buildings are get built.

However, we haven't seen the other part of this yet, which is where people start to move to previously less undesireable areas because other areas become too expensive.

 

[Kosy123]

Having desirable suburbs and a vibrant downtown where people want to eat, shop, stay and live are not mutually exclusive concepts. Many cities of our size or smaller (ex. Kelowna) pull this off successfully.

Right now the public's negative perception of Downtown is the biggest hindrance it faces. It's worth noting that the most successful and thriving part of our "downtown" right now for livability and investment is Oliver, and there's more good things to come in that regards.

That begs the question: What is Oliver doing that Downtown isn't doing?

Oliver has double the population which helps immensely. DT would be doing much better if it was closer to 30000 people than 10000.

Oliver also doesn't have people online absolutely losing their god damn minds unlike the perception with downtown. The amount of absolute nonsense, pearl clutching and stupidity I've seen on Twitter, Reddit (oh god that subreddit has me ready to fight people) and TikTok about downtown (which doesn't apply to Oliver over the magical 109 St line) is ridiculous. I've seen people essentially state that all of DT is at the same level as East Hastings. It's pure online circlejerking mania.

Suburbanites have essentially dominated the conversation when it comes to how downtown Edmonton has been viewed, and it shows online heavilyyy.

/end rant

 

[JuliallThat]

Oliver has double the population which helps immensely. DT would be doing much better if it was closer to 30000 people than 10000.

Oliver also doesn't have people online absolutely losing their god damn minds unlike the perception with downtown. The amount of absolute nonsense, pearl clutching and stupidity I've seen on Twitter, Reddit (oh god that subreddit has me ready to fight people) and TikTok about downtown (which doesn't apply to Oliver over the magical 109 St line) is ridiculous. I've seen people essentially state that all of DT is at the same level as East Hastings. It's pure online circlejerking mania.

Suburbanites have essentially dominated the conversation when it comes to how downtown Edmonton has been viewed, and it shows online heavilyyy.

/end rant

That gives me a thought then.

With the both real and perceived division that is present between Downtown and Oliver, Is there any practical infrastructure or idea we could use to figuratively or literally bridge the divide between sides?
It's not just 109 St but also the linear park/rail ROW that contributes to this feeling of the two sides being so separated. 109 St itself is busy and hostile. Every path through the 109St-111St block has that kind of feeling of "crossing" from one place to another place. And of course you are, the land use and street design east of 111St vs west of 109 St is fairly different.

a 109 St road diet is an "option" but with the nature of the road network I think it's best to shelve the idea of making 109 St significantly "nicer". Maybe we should try and avoid it entirely. What about a large wide overpass for pedestrians and cyclists? Like say a 20' wide landscaped bridge that crosses from the railway MUP directly to 108 St, along 102 Ave maybe. Lifting users fully away from 109 St and removing the perception of the barrier by making it feel as if the park continues directly into downtown. Something like this:

 

[Barnaby]

I like the idea, but I generally don't like pedestrian overpasses. The big problem I see with it, is that it looks incredibly expensive. I think crossing islands with REAL bollards could go a long way to improve these crossings. This could be done outside of a complete renewal by closing the left turn lanes and continuing the median.

I agree that giving 109th a road diet is unlikely for the time being. The crossing at 104th Ave should improve with the VLW completion.

 

[David A]

Oliver has double the population which helps immensely. DT would be doing much better if it was closer to 30000 people than 10000.

Oliver also doesn't have people online absolutely losing their god damn minds unlike the perception with downtown. The amount of absolute nonsense, pearl clutching and stupidity I've seen on Twitter, Reddit (oh god that subreddit has me ready to fight people) and TikTok about downtown (which doesn't apply to Oliver over the magical 109 St line) is ridiculous. I've seen people essentially state that all of DT is at the same level as East Hastings. It's pure online circlejerking mania.

Suburbanites have essentially dominated the conversation when it comes to how downtown Edmonton has been viewed, and it shows online heavilyyy.

/end rant

Oliver has historically been primarily a residential area and developed as such, whereas the downtown core has been more a commercial business centre with some significant retail and neither of those are thriving now.

There has been some residential development in the downtown core in recent years and there is room for much more, but suburban perceptions of social problems are exaggerated and extent to a larger area of the core than they actually exist, which is not helpful.

I do feel at the same time there will also have to be a real push to get more businesses and retail to locate downtown to make it more desirable for people to live there. Jobs, a good selection of nearby retail and amenities drive downtown desirability in any city and right now frankly we are only strong in one of three.

 

[Barnaby]

Implementing land value tax for the downtown area would be nice. Making someone in a 400k apartment pay the same amount as a new home seems to be counterproductive.

 

[Greenspace]

West Oliver has always had higher income retirees and residential, but with recent retail developments and businesses it has added a bit of 'cool' factor for sure. Not sure I'd call that gentrification (loss of a few 3 story walk ups for sure).

 

[ChazYEG]

Oliver has double the population which helps immensely. DT would be doing much better if it was closer to 30000 people than 10000.

I'm spending some time in my hometown in Brazil for the holidays and this is something that struck me hard.
The city proper has about half of the size of Edmonton proper (in a metro of about 1.3M), but the DT has basically 2x the population, and it shows.
And I'm not talking disorganized, "dirty" density like people usually associate with Latin America, but a fairly tidy, ordered and well cared for area, with LOTS of street life. The whole central area is around the size of Edmonton DT + Oliver, but has upwards of 65k people, and pretty much everything is walkable.
Also, streets are cleaner, there's a LOT less homeless roaming around and you see constant police presence patrolling the streets on foot and bikes.
I'll be DT again, tomorrow, and I'll try to snatch some pictures, for illustration.

Now, what boggles my mind is: a city with about 1/8th of the GDP, in a significantly poorer country, with an overall much more complex situation in terms of economic and social issues, a level of corruption that Canadians can't even begin to comprehend, more layers of bureaucracy than the insides of an onion can get all of this done (and the city administration managed to improve it significantly over the past 4 years, since I've been here.), why can't one of the richest cities, in one of the richest provinces of one of the richest countries on Earth?

 

[JuliallThat]

I like the idea, but I generally don't like pedestrian overpasses. The big problem I see with it, is that it looks incredibly expensive. I think crossing islands with REAL bollards could go a long way to improve these crossings. This could be done outside of a complete renewal by closing the left turn lanes and continuing the median.

I agree that giving 109th a road diet is unlikely for the time being. The crossing at 104th Ave should improve with the VLW completion.

Though I can't deny the cost of something like this, I think some aspects of modern urbanism spend too much time trying to bring everything onto the same level.
I don't think there's any shame in mode separation, and it's something we should always keep on the table. (Keep above the table??)
That said they have to be good overpasses; none of this 3 switchbacks just to go up and over sort of thing. A long gradual incline that connect directly in-line with existing paths are a lot better for users, and ought to feel like you haven't even left the path at all.

That said, yes please more bollards. God only knows why North American planners are so afraid of a good bollard.

 

[David A]

I'm spending some time in my hometown in Brazil for the holidays and this is something that struck me hard.
The city proper has about half of the size of Edmonton proper (in a metro of about 1.3M), but the DT has basically 2x the population, and it shows.
And I'm not talking disorganized, "dirty" density like people usually associate with Latin America, but a fairly tidy, ordered and well cared for area, with LOTS of street life. The whole central area is around the size of Edmonton DT + Oliver, but has upwards of 65k people, and pretty much everything is walkable.
Also, streets are cleaner, there's a LOT less homeless roaming around and you see constant police presence patrolling the streets on foot and bikes.
I'll be DT again, tomorrow, and I'll try to snatch some pictures, for illustration.

Now, what boggles my mind is: a city with about 1/8th of the GDP, in a significantly poorer country, with an overall much more complex situation in terms of economic and social issues, a level of corruption that Canadians can't even begin to comprehend, more layers of bureaucracy than the insides of an onion can get all of this done (and the city administration managed to improve it significantly over the past 4 years, since I've been here.), why can't one of the richest cities, in one of the richest provinces of one of the richest countries on Earth?

Edmonton is a young city, pretty much designed with a suburban focus and that mentality is hard to change, particularly when those people find going or living downtown inconvenient, scary or expensive.

To their credit, our previous two mayors and their councils did work very hard to promote downtown, but that has either been overwhelmed or forgotten by the current administration in trying to deal with COVID and its impacts.