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Downtown

Glenco said:
15 minute community. I think I could do it to 120 street in about 15-20 and I’m 77. Not everything is supposed to be at your doorstep
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I don't think anyone will be enticed to live downtown by this 15 minute nonsense. In a walkable area you want to get to many things in a 5 to 10 minute walk, not waiting 10 minutes for a bus and then 5 or 10 minutes after that.
 
IMG_3114.jpeg

Greg Southam/Postmedia
Ashes from a fatal fire remain outside the DoubleTree by Hilton in downtown Edmonton on Jan. 31, 2025.

“ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE

Wednesday morning’s Edmonton Journal digs into the city’s latest Grand Guignol street horror with some pertinent observations from a social worker. Very early Friday morning, amid outdoor temperatures incompatible with life, an adult male burned to death while huddled against a nice Edmonton hotel in a bad downtown neighbourhood. News reporting was initially terse, with the police disclosing even fewer details than usual: yes, someone called in to say there was a man on fire by the DoubleTree, and sure enough, when we got there, we found a man on fire. What else do you need to know? None of your business, citizen: move along.

Residents of Edmonton’s downtown were left to fill in the details imaginatively. “Police could not confirm the person’s housing status,” wrote a CTV reporter, not adding “But I bet you can make a pretty good guess.” The cops added that the immolation victim had been “handling flammable material” — there’s a fun little puzzle: is the answer that human fat is, after all, flammable? Are we intended to infer that this was an arson attempt gone wrong? Or is this a case — and this has become startingly common here in just the last two or three years — where someone set out to survive a cold night by making a campfire in the entryway of a business? Not arson, but then again, arson-adjacent.

Nothing criminal about any of it, nothing of wider concern. But, as Indigenous outreach worker Judith Gale observes in the Wednesday Journal, the ever-increasing secretiveness of the Edmonton police has the effect of allowing people to die publicly in spectacular, unspeakable ways without even the vestigial dignity of a name. Somehow Gale was able to view video footage of the death taken from a security camera at a nearby liquor store: she reveals the new detail (is she paid to do freelance police comms?) that a woman sitting next to the flaming corpse caught fire, and was injured, and probably survived, but perhaps not. A third urban camper walked away “nonchalantly” from the blaze, introducing the possibility of a homicide that Edmonton’s finest were immediately certain hadn’t happened.

Like you, I am still left with the question “What the hell exactly happened here?” but, of course, in my case “here” means “literally here, a 10-minute walk from my door.” Meanwhile, as Gale says, the constipated information flow from the police has countless area families who’ve lost touch with substance-abusing loved ones wondering whether that might have been Jimmy or Billy in the pile of roasted detritus.

This is just one especially cruel manifestation of a national privacy instinct, complete with its own screwball legal framework, that is nothing more or less than collective Canadian brain damage. (Some of you reading this are indignant that a newspaperman wants to know what happened where he lives!) This news story, served in microscopic pieces over a period of days, touches on a half-dozen public issues of seething urgency — most of which, I’ll add, we seem totally incapable of solving. I have long since stopped believing this to be some grand coincidence.

— Colby Cosh
National Post
 
trevorhayden said:
Wow the National Post published something critical of our Police. Fascinating.
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Oh there is plenty of blame to go around. The Provincial Government which has money has talked a lot about doing things to improve the situation in downtown Edmonton. It doesn't seem to have accomplished much so far.

The city doesn't seem to be able to do a lot either, but they claim not to have enough funding due to cut backs from the province, even though our province is supposedly one of the most well off in Canada and has a budget surplus.

As for the Police, they seem to be reasonably well funded, but where the heck are they most of the time? They seem MIA or have checked out of downtown.
 
Foot traffic hasn’t been as strong as she hoped, even with Rogers Place just down the street, Evoy said.

“When people come to the (Oilers) game, they’re not going shopping here and then bringing their products to the game. They can’t do that. And a lot of times they come by transit, they go to the game and they go back home, and that’s it,” she said. “So whether there’s games or events, we don’t notice much of a difference. Restaurants might. We don’t.”
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edmontonjournal.com

Edmonton bakery Mama Leila’s Keto Treats leaving Downtown location

Leila Evoy has spent nearly four years serving up keto-friendly treats in Downtown Edmonton, but soon, her bakery is heading north.
edmontonjournal.com edmontonjournal.com
 
David A said:
Oh there is plenty of blame to go around. The Provincial Government which has money has talked a lot about doing things to improve the situation in downtown Edmonton. It doesn't seem to have accomplished much so far.

The city doesn't seem to be able to do a lot either, but they claim not to have enough funding due to cut backs from the province, even though our province is supposedly one of the most well off in Canada and has a budget surplus.

As for the Police, they seem to be reasonably well funded, but where the heck are they most of the time? They seem MIA or have checked out of downtown.
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The only Downtown they are patrolling are the concourses at Rogers making Triple OT for Oilers/concerts.
 
104 St north of 102 Ave also doesn't have the best foot traffic as well. Much less than south of 102 Ave and that's probably going to continue once construction starts for the Valley Line.

I'm glad to see Puneeta mentioning that while downtown isn't as busy as it should be, the trend is moving towards normalcy and that should be emphasized constantly. It's not just our anecdotes and screaming in this forum saying downtown feels busier than last year.
 
I like No Sugar No Problem, I went there once and a while but it's an extremely niche business and she's lucky she can get out of her lease early (landlord is moving some businesses around).
 
^I shopped there for some celiacs and diabetics once or twice and liked it, too, but you're right that it's way too niche of a business to rely on downtown foot traffic. It feels like the sort of business more at home at a low-rent suburban mall or stripmall.

In terms of businesses being shifted, can you say what is moving where?
 
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