Downtown

[CaptainBL]

Yup and I wish it was something media outlets (or just people in general) picked up on and would start grilling the city about.

Surprising to me it seems to be a massive blind spot/gap. Edmonton Chamber doesn't lobby for it, the Downtown Recovery Coalition hasn't highlighted it as part of their lobbying, absolutely no one on council over the past 20 years has identified it as an area of focus.

For whatever reason, it seems to be a large blind spot and quite frankly, the lowest hanging fruit for helping downtown recover, decreasing our downtown vacancy, and increasing the tax base of downtown.

 

[Greenspace]

All the recovery efforts are to make Downtown more attractive to businesses. And we've seen a few relocations. But I agree outside the business community itself no one is talking about it or has a plan beyond the usual stuff of making Downtown attractive, clean, safe etc.

 

[Greenspace]

The Italians

https://twitter.com/x/status/1814100154427007131

 

[northlands]

Surprising to me it seems to be a massive blind spot/gap. Edmonton Chamber doesn't lobby for it, the Downtown Recovery Coalition hasn't highlighted it as part of their lobbying, absolutely no one on council over the past 20 years has identified it as an area of focus.

For whatever reason, it seems to be a large blind spot and quite frankly, the lowest hanging fruit for helping downtown recover, decreasing our downtown vacancy, and increasing the tax base of downtown.

Worse yet, it's a positive feedback loop. Edmonton's lack of big business HQ'd here (whether downtown or anywhere in this city) hurts the overall corporate culture, which includes supporting services to those major firms (esp. financing), further causes other corporations to not want to relo here, or worse: relocate out of here, only making the situation worse.

Resembles why Edmonton's business community does pretty fantastic on the small-medium sized front, but struggles hard to scale beyond that. At a certain point, if you have a successful medium sized business that you want to continue to scale up, you need to be rubbing shoulders with other corporate/financing executives to build the connections that will continue to accelerate the growth of your company, and that just doesn't really exist here.

100% correct... this should have become a massive focus 20 years ago. It's basically a glass ceiling for business here now.

 

[IanO]

That's so damn cool!

 

[Offworld]

The Italians

https://twitter.com/x/status/1814100154427007131

Very cool. I wonder if they're doing a cross country tour. I hear they also buzzed Vancouver and the usual people afterward were screaming "it only celebrates militarism!!!".

 

[SimonCo]

Looks like slapshot on 104th is ahead of schedule. Already allegedly not paying their employees and overcharging customers, and not practising proper food safe. Who placed bets on closed by the end of the year???

 

[Coprolite]

Looks like slapshot on 104th is ahead of schedule. Already allegedly not paying their employees and overcharging customers, and not practising proper food safe. Who placed bets on closed by the end of the year???

Womp womp.

One of the challenging things about this spot is going to be that pretty much everyone else around you has their stuff together, and some of what's there is pretty economical especially during the rather broad happy hours.

 

[Coprolite]

Show of hands: who here works a job downtown?

I currently do not

I work very near it... because I usually work from home.

This will change in the coming months.

 

[IanO]

 

[MacLac]

What is the Cole's notes version of this?

 

[IanO]

Things improving, but the new era of 'downtown work' and WFH means it needs to focus on events, residential, experience.

Also, THANK GOD for ICE District/Rogers/Oilers.

 

[TAS]

Things improving, but the new era of 'downtown work' and WFH means it needs to focus on events, residential, experience.

Also, THANK GOD for ICE District/Rogers/Oilers.

*And as a result of that new era of 'downtown work' climate, we also need to reimagine our streets leading into dt and within. We no longer have 1,000s of extra people coming and leaving dt daily so if we want to build dt as a better residential experience, our streets need to better relfect that.

*Those aren't Puneeta's words, they're mine.

 

[SimonCo]

Also, THANK GOD for ICE District/Rogers/Oilers.

I shudder to think what downtown Edmonton would look like if Ice District hadn't been finished at the perfect time (before covid). We got real lucky there (unlike Calgary).

 

[David A]

I shudder to think what downtown Edmonton would look like if Ice District hadn't been finished at the perfect time (before covid). We got real lucky there (unlike Calgary).

Yes, what happened with other retail being decimated may have also happened to restaurants and bars too. While some restaurants and bars did close, some new ones also came in to replace them.