Downtown

[David A]

I’m not suggesting whyte ave is “downtown”. I’m suggesting for a city of our size, having a vibrant, commercial, entertainment, arts street like whyte ave be seperate from our proper downtown spreads out the places people go. Same with 124th, brewery district, and Oliver. Anejo, cactus, local, developments like Citizen and the Pearl, etc. all could be concentrated closer together and create a very vibrant 12 block downtown. But instead, they’re spread out beyond a walkable distance.

So some people are on whyte, some near 109st garneau, others RHW, some Ice District or 104th. Other on jasper ave in Oliver, or 124th, or brewery district bars. It’s just too many areas that aren’t continuous.

If those all existed 109st to 97st, 104ave to the valley edge, we would have a BUMPIN downtown.

Many cities of any size have more than one commercial, retail or entertainment area. Calgary has 17 Ave about the same distance from their main downtown street as ours and a nice Kensington area in the other direction.

Having these does not destroy downtown and Whyte Ave certainly doesn't. Maybe the farther away West Ed Mall because of its huge size did seriously hurt downtown retail years ago, but Whyte Ave - nope!

 

[thommyjo]

Many cities of any size have more than one commercial, retail or entertainment area. Calgary has 17 Ave about the same distance from their main downtown street as ours and a nice Kensington area in the other direction.

Having these does not destroy downtown and Whyte Ave certainly doesn't. Maybe the farther away West Ed Mall because of its huge size did seriously hurt downtown retail years ago, but Whyte Ave - nope!

Agreed, but Calgary is significantly larger in terms of city proper pop. and in terms of downtown workforce/residents. They punch above their weight class because of the HQs too. But Calgary I still find to be more consolidated. Beltline/railway vs our massive river valley/whyte isn’t comparable. Vancouver feels more focused too. Sure there’s commercial, Olympic village, and broadway. But the downtown is still the hub (and their region is twice our pop with better transit into the core).

Before the ice district, whyte ave was the hub for bars, nightlife, and hockey culture. Arguably it still holds onto some of that beyond playoffs. Calgary/Toronto/Vancouver would never have their main nightlife or sports culture street be outside downtown like that.

A city of 1 mil can only support so many bars, restaurants, etc. having 4-6 main streets that are all pretty small by themselves, spreads out the vibrancy. Having only 2-3 areas would create more stretches like the great mainstreets and entertainment districts of other cities. 103&104street running from 99ave to 104ave, full of restaurants bars and shops, feeling more continuous, would do wonders. Vs Cactus, Campio, Parlour, Local, the Cabin, etc all be little islands surrounded by parking and desolation.

 

[David A]

Whyte Ave has existed in its current state for decades with some ups and downs. So it definitely did not cause the decline of our downtown over the last five years.

It attracts people in part because of its proximity to the university and the area south which is one of the faster growing areas of the city and because it retained interesting historic character buildings which were mostly torn down in the downtown core.

What do you want to do bulldoze Whyte Ave in the name of creating a better downtown?

 

[Gronk!]

You wanna know what can end all of this silly arguing over the semantics of "downtown Edmonton"? Rename the neighborhood that is officially known as "Downtown", which is bordered by 109 St, 97 St, 104 Ave and 97 Ave. How about renaming it to "Beaver Hills" or "Edmonton Centre"? Then downtown Edmonton can consist of this neighborhood plus Wîhkwêntôwin (formerly Oliver), Rossdale, The Quarters, Chinatown, etc. or however one sees fit.

 

[David A]

You wanna know what can end all of this silly arguing over the semantics of "downtown Edmonton"? Rename the neighborhood that is officially known as "Downtown", which is bordered by 109 St, 97 St, 104 Ave and 97 Ave. How about renaming it to "Beaver Hills" or "Edmonton Centre"? Then downtown Edmonton can consist of this neighborhood plus Wîhkwêntôwin (formerly Oliver), Rossdale, The Quarters, Chinatown, etc. or however one sees fit.

Yes, this all came about because someone said our downtown is too big, which I feel is ridiculous if not for any other reason because we can't even seem to agree on how big it is.

 

[David A]

I might also call it City Centre, because there is something actually called City Centre sort of in the centre of the downtown core, although it used to be called Edmonton Centre, which is less generic but hopefully at least we can all agree we are talking about Edmonton here.

 

[Coprolite]

Yes that, but they were generally referring to the amount of vacant office and retail space, and how spread out it feels compared to other cities. If you put that all in a few blocks rather than spreading it out from 97 st to 111 street it would feel more vibrant.

One line that caught my attention that is used in other cities as well, "You're not overbuilt, you're under-demolished"

I can see that line being very valid when it comes to Edmonton City Centre. It's always been this very awkward implementation of a suburban shopping mall with bad hours, it's been dying for ages, and there is nothing out there that can reverse its fortunes. It will never actually work as it's currently built, and there isn't really a practical fix. It will keep sucking the life out of everything around it until it's so extensively reworked that it would no longer be recognizable as what it was.

 

[kcantor]

I might also call it City Centre, because there is something actually called City Centre sort of in the centre of the downtown core, although it used to be called Edmonton Centre, which is less generic but hopefully at least we can all agree we are talking about Edmonton here.

We could adapt/adopt the European nomenclature for their city cores and call or Centro.