News   Apr 03, 2020
From the Editor: A Message to Our Readers
 9.2K     3 
News   Apr 02, 2020
Topping Off March 2020: What's Hot on SkyriseEdmonton
 10K     0 
News   Apr 02, 2020
News Roundup for April 2, 2020
 3.4K     0 

Downtown

Everyone on here agrees that the City owns the baseline - cleanliness and safety are the table stakes for downtown revival. Well, maybe free parking too. But there's a massive amount of hypocrisy in demanding the City 'fix' downtown while private sector landlords, investors, and business associations largely sit on the sidelines waiting for a risk-free environment. If Edmontonians are spending more per capita than anyone else in Canada, why aren't our business leaders capturing it?

- As long as we are a regional shopping hub for northern Alberta, big-box retail will stay where the highways are. The City can't police its way out of the fact that a family from Fort Mac isn't going to navigate downtown construction for a Cabela’s or Home Depot run.

- It’s easy for the Chamber, the DBA, or DRC (and a few folks on here) to point fingers at City Hall. It’s much harder for them to incentivize their own members to take a chance on innovative urban retail formats or to reinvest in their own tired facades.
We keep talking about the City 'pulling up its pants,' but the business community needs to put some skin in the game too. If the demand is there, and the money is there, but the stores aren't, then the direct problem just might be a lack of entrepreneurial courage and realistic property management, not just a lack of beat cops.
 
Offworld said:
Right now? You're known as the place where investment goes to die. At the latest Toronto RE forum, during the CEO roundtable, they were bullish about much of Canada, except for Edmonton. The LITERAL statement from one CEO was "Sorry Edmonton, but not going there." The rest of the CEOs at the roundtable? Nodding heads, knowingly. Edmonton was the only city called out for being a place that big investors had zero interest in.
Click to expand...
When a room full of CEOs knowingly nod that they won't touch Edmonton, they are effectively admitting that they’ve abandoned the market despite our leading retail spend and high disposable incomes. That isn’t a critique of City Council; it’s a confession of institutional risk aversion.

If "investment goes there to die", it’s because those same REITs and landlords would rather leave a hole in our urban core than adapt their business models to a city that isn't Toronto or Vancouver. They want their guaranteed, subsidized slam-dunk, and when they don't get it, they blame the local government.

If we want to stop being the "laughing stock", we need to stop waiting for the nodding heads in Toronto to save us and start asking why our local business leadership and property owners are so content to let that narrative stand while they wait for the City to de-risk their next move.
 
Business leaders out east have always been ignorant of Edmonton. And they didn't need to know or care about us when they were building their 1 bedroom closet condos for $1.5 million. Those days are either over or on life support. At the end of the day, it's survival of the fittest. If they don't want our money, let other entrepreneurs—younger, more open-minded—have their chance.

But our business leaders need to do more: more promotion, more pushback against negative narratives, more investment. The business community loves to use the City as a piñata, when they know full well our problems extend to provincial jurisdiction. Yet I rarely hear them advocating or pushing the province to help with social issues. Where is the media event with a podium standing outside the Legislature asking for more support? Nope. Best they can do is stand in front of the ECC and harp on the City for not solving all their problems or not giving them more tax payers’ money.

Pathetic.

Our business leaders are way too timid, demure, and insular, with this 'one-foot-out-the-door' mentality. That's on them, not the City.

There's plenty of blame to go around, but the business community needs to take their fair share.
 
Last edited:
To echo many of the posts here: the City is not blameless, but it’s easy to pin every downtown problem on them. The City helped foot the bill for a new arena 12 years ago, sold as a catalyst for a downtown renaissance. How did the downtown business community step up? 2015: Edmonton's City Centre mall to consolidate on three levels, add 300 parking stalls
Half a billion dollar gift and 20,000 people at your doorstep on event nights, and the response was more parking? Never mind what the mall has become today. The ice district? we are nearly a decade since the arena opened, many key CRUs are still empty with most prime space filled with any bank they can find. That’s not vibrancy, that feels like survival mode.

In the past decade alone, the City has built new parks, renovated the central library, built two new LRT lines downtown, and the Province put the RAM right in the core. And while there have been some good private developments; at its worst we’ve watched a developer leave a half demolished building at the centre of downtown, while others seize every opportunity to pave another parking lot. Where is the shared vision to create a downtown people actually want to visit?

Short of the City literally building buildings or subsidizing retailers to open shop, what exactly is being asked of them to have Sportchek or A&W or (insert retailer) return?

And not to burst any bubbles here, even dramatically increasing residents downtown does not guarantee retail will follow. Look at Jasper Avenue through Wîhkwêntôwin. Decades of residential density and people at the doorstep, yet landowners have largely sat on their hands, leaving the majority of that stretch still looking like a hollowed out truck stop.

If downtown is going to turn a corner, the city definitely needs to clean it up, but it's the business community that needs to start acting like they actually believe in the place.
 
Offworld said:
Right now? You're known as the place where investment goes to die. At the latest Toronto RE forum, during the CEO roundtable, they were bullish about much of Canada, except for Edmonton. The LITERAL statement from one CEO was "Sorry Edmonton, but not going there." The rest of the CEOs at the roundtable? Nodding heads, knowingly. Edmonton was the only city called out for being a place that big investors had zero interest in.
Click to expand...
As much as I am critical of the effort (or lack thereof) to improve the investment friendliness of our downtown and better market our city, I’m not taking shit from a bunch of real estate moguls in Toronto - the same people who have absolutely tanked the livability of this country by helping push home ownership out of reach of young Canadians through their speculative “investments” that fuelled a housing bubble and subsequent condo crash. These real estate speculators can keep their stupid games far away from us while your average Joe in Ontario or BC moves with their feet. That being said, let’s keep our focus on the life sciences sector, tech and AI, heavy industry and petrochemicals and try to be more ambitious with our financial sector.

Edit: I would also add that real estate speculators are already a problem in our downtown. All the empty parking lots and razed buildings? Probably an owner just holding out to flip it while adding nothing of value to the site themselves.
 
It breaks my heart to see places like Rice Howard Place redo their tower, with virtually no results. In the past couple of years, the underground pedway system (at the LRT stations) is gradually safer to walk. It seems like there's an AHS or other emergency vehicle responding to emergencies day and night downtown.
 
I think you're all being a bit harsh and unrealistic about how institutional capital works. The business leaders I know Downtown are passionate folk that do what they can despite the problems -- lack of interest in our Downtown by outside capital, unfettered suburban expansionism (for better or worse), major safety challenges other cities simply do not deal with. Literally hundreds of millions of private, mostly local, capital being invested every year. We talk about the projects on this forum. Billions of private capital into ICE district. If retailers don't want to be here it's for no lack of trying. Our entire Downtown is being judged by one failing mall.
 
'If downtown is going to turn a corner, the city definitely needs to clean it up, but it's the business community that needs to start acting like they actually believe in the place.'

YES and... the average Edmontonian giving shit about the look, feel, reputation and potential of our Downtown.
 
It is pretty sad though and I do place a lot more blame on the business community, and landowners. Big promises have been made for City Center Mall, and nothing ever has come of it so far. Very slowly Jasper Avenue has seen upgrades and a little bit of properties have been redeveloped but not as much as it could have been. Jasper East block/ the quarters has been fixed up by the city but all the landowners have basically remained silent on any new development. Thankfully we do have one or two at least good Developers that have single-handedly been changing the core for the better, and to them I thank them very much for their strong efforts.
 
IanO said:
'If downtown is going to turn a corner, the city definitely needs to clean it up, but it's the business community that needs to start acting like they actually believe in the place.'

YES and... the average Edmontonian giving shit about the look, feel, reputation and potential of our Downtown.
Click to expand...
No offence, man, but not everyone is a downtown booster like you are. Many people have no interest in ever leaving their suburban or urban neighbourhood.

While our downtown is important, and most people will agree to that fact on this forum, you're kind of preaching to the choir and have been in all your posts for the last 3-4 pages.

I've mentioned it elsewhere before, but the current state of affairs downtown has taken years to develop. It didn't happen overnight. Likewise, digging ourselves out of this hole is a long-term thing that won't be solved overnight, despite what some people on here hope for. You all need to be more realistic and logical about where things stand and what it will take to move the needle. It will be incremental changes, and we will have to live with the current state of things.

For example, no one is going to solve decades of generational substance abuse and the resulting individuals that face homelessness and social disorder overnight - I don't even think society has accepted what it would cost to solve that problem or what would be required from a support's point of view. Additionally, institutional capital doesn't change its mind quickly. It will take a concerted effort to grow our residential base downtown before things change.

I know people are addicted to the immediate dopamine hit of new and shiny things and how we consume information online, but that doesn't translate to how quickly the real world changes.
 
johnnyboy said:
When a room full of CEOs knowingly nod that they won't touch Edmonton, they are effectively admitting that they’ve abandoned the market despite our leading retail spend and high disposable incomes. That isn’t a critique of City Council; it’s a confession of institutional risk aversion.

If "investment goes there to die", it’s because those same REITs and landlords would rather leave a hole in our urban core than adapt their business models to a city that isn't Toronto or Vancouver. They want their guaranteed, subsidized slam-dunk, and when they don't get it, they blame the local government.

If we want to stop being the "laughing stock", we need to stop waiting for the nodding heads in Toronto to save us and start asking why our local business leadership and property owners are so content to let that narrative stand while they wait for the City to de-risk their next move.
Click to expand...
I wonder how those many of those supposedly brilliant CEO's investments in Toronto are doing now. Last time I checked some of those REITs were a bit of a blood bath for their investors.

Frankly I feel some of these people have their heads up their as*es and could do to get out of downtown Toronto a lot more, but I do sort of understand their bias to stick with the familiar and closer to home.

I agree it will probably be more local businesses and investors that need to step up here, along with the city that needs to do more including dealing better with that endless construction, which is another problem for downtown as mentioned in another post here.
 
The sense of self loathing is strong here. There are issues, mistakes have been made. But I remember a shuttered Hotel Mac with potential of demolition, rail yards along 109 street, a greyhound bus station surrounded by gravel lots. A burnt out Kelly Ramsey building, a dead 104 street and, norquest and macewan small and insignificant. I recall no city hall, winspear, art gallery, museum,, or station lands. The list goes on.

All of that has happened in many cases against all odds, some of it pretty recently.
Our downtown is different, can continue to grow, needs work, but perspective is pretty important in my opinion,
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top