Blatchford Development | ?m | ?s | City of Edmonton

Avenuer said:
The Meadows of Laurel, which the City is developing, seems to be doing quite well. I'm not sure why Aster would be any different.
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I'm not sure exactly what the city does and doesn't own but having lived in Silverberry and Laurel for almost my entire life I can confirm things are pretty good down here. Laurel is split into 3 large sections (Laurel, Laurel Crossing, Laurel Green), my only complaint with the actual homes would be that in Laurel Green they are very squished together and don't seem worth the money but that might just be the market. As for the area although I haven't lived elsewhere in the city to compare I think it's doing quite well, a 5 minute drive or less from anywhere in the area are 2 grocery stores, a shoppers drug mart, a rec centre, a soon to be high school that is currently under construction and a K to 9 school. I'd like to add that the Rec Centre and K to 9 school are beautiful inside and out, I'll let you guys know about the high school once its built. Also within the 5 minute radius there is a dollar store and other basic amenities you would expect. Of course driving all the time isn't great so the city built a walking/cycling path through the area quite a while ago that is highly used, so all these places are also a short walk away. The area also has 4 lakes (although I think they are man made). As for the major roads with Aster up and coming I suspect 23rd Ave will need to be readjusted for 2 lanes once you hit Laurel. 17th Street in the south is AWFUL for some reason despite knowing that they plan to build 3 new large neighbourhoods in the area the city kept the road as one lane on each side so its a gong show during rush hour for people getting off/on the whitemud or going to the very busy 17th Street Plaza. 34th Street is good until you go south past the henday although its been under construction for months now so I hope by the time they are done it will be an actual proper smooth and maintained city road instead of the bumpy slippery no road marking mess it was before. The Hills at Charlesworth is another new neighbourhood up and coming south of laurel and east of ellerslie I went with my cousins to check out homes and it also seems to be doing well.

Didn't mean for this to be so long and an advertisement to the area but long story short yes I think Aster will do well 🤣
 
Edmontonian said:
I'm not sure exactly what the city does and doesn't own but having lived in Silverberry and Laurel for almost my entire life I can confirm things are pretty good down here. Laurel is split into 3 large sections (Laurel, Laurel Crossing, Laurel Green), my only complaint with the actual homes would be that in Laurel Green they are very squished together and don't seem worth the money but that might just be the market. As for the area although I haven't lived elsewhere in the city to compare I think it's doing quite well, a 5 minute drive or less from anywhere in the area are 2 grocery stores, a shoppers drug mart, a rec centre, a soon to be high school that is currently under construction and a K to 9 school. I'd like to add that the Rec Centre and K to 9 school are beautiful inside and out, I'll let you guys know about the high school once its built. Also within the 5 minute radius there is a dollar store and other basic amenities you would expect. Of course driving all the time isn't great so the city built a walking/cycling path through the area quite a while ago that is highly used, so all these places are also a short walk away. The area also has 4 lakes (although I think they are man made). As for the major roads with Aster up and coming I suspect 23rd Ave will need to be readjusted for 2 lanes once you hit Laurel. 17th Street in the south is AWFUL for some reason despite knowing that they plan to build 3 new large neighbourhoods in the area the city kept the road as one lane on each side so its a gong show during rush hour for people getting off/on the whitemud or going to the very busy 17th Street Plaza. 34th Street is good until you go south past the henday although its been under construction for months now so I hope by the time they are done it will be an actual proper smooth and maintained city road instead of the bumpy slippery no road marking mess it was before. The Hills at Charlesworth is another new neighbourhood up and coming south of laurel and east of ellerslie I went with my cousins to check out homes and it also seems to be doing well.

Didn't mean for this to be so long and an advertisement to the area but long story short yes I think Aster will do well 🤣
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Aster and Laurel have done well because of the significant investments and planning made by Qualico and Dream (along with Dream/Dundee in the rest of the Meadows) not because the City of Edmonton. I was pointing out that the City of Edmonton has already made a mistake by significantly by paying over market for a parcel in Aster. The private sector would have done it better and more efficiently. Many of the great resources the City has provided to the region such as schools and rec center are something the City should focus on and leave the actual development component to the private sector.
 
EtoV said:
Streetview (sidewalkview?) is now available for blatchford. Not sure when the imagery was taken, but appears to have been uploaded in October.

Imagery by Eugene Chen
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Oilers99 said:
Aster and Laurel have done well because of the significant investments and planning made by Qualico and Dream (along with Dream/Dundee in the rest of the Meadows) not because the City of Edmonton. I was pointing out that the City of Edmonton has already made a mistake by significantly by paying over market for a parcel in Aster. The private sector would have done it better and more efficiently. Many of the great resources the City has provided to the region such as schools and rec center are something the City should focus on and leave the actual development component to the private sector.
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The City's parcel in Aster has not been developed yet but good chance it'll do as well as their parcel in Laurel (which sold very well). The Aster parcel is 53.86 acres (21.8 hectares) and was purchased for $11 million in late 2018, but I'm not sure what the market value of land was at that time (is $204,233/acre for raw land very expensive or a good deal?).
 
Avenuer said:
The City's parcel in Aster has not been developed yet but good chance it'll do as well as their parcel in Laurel (which sold very well). The Aster parcel is 53.86 acres (21.8 hectares) and was purchased for $11 million in late 2018, but I'm not sure what the market value of land was at that time (is $204,233/acre for raw land very expensive or a good deal?).
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Expensive, very expensive. Just because Laurel sold well, doesn't mean the city will do very well on it. There is a misnomer in land development that if things sell well the project has done super well. It all comes down to the land cost, but the city does not look at traditional IRR metrics or likely any metrics at all so c'est la vie.
 
Oilers99 said:
Expensive, very expensive. Just because Laurel sold well, doesn't mean the city will do very well on it. There is a misnomer in land development that if things sell well the project has done super well. It all comes down to the land cost, but the city does not look at traditional IRR metrics or likely any metrics at all so c'est la vie.
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Oh they look at IRR - their margins were between 25 and 35% for their holdings in Laurel (from this Council report attachment). I think they can pay higher prices for land at times because their margins are quite high relative to private industry, but that's just an assumption of mine.
 

Attachments

  • Land Governance Strategy - Additional Information - Attachment 5 Enterprise Land Development C...pdf
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Avenuer said:
Oh they look at IRR - their margins were between 25 and 35% for their holdings in Laurel (from this Council report attachment). I think they can pay higher prices for land at times because their margins are quite high relative to private industry, but that's just an assumption of mine.
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margin would be different than IRR. anyways - Aster they overpaid relative to market at the time.
 
When the city talks about townhouse accounts coming online, I wasn't sure if they were counting individual units, or whole buildings. The 2023 Rate Filling makes it clear that they count whole buildings, which gives a better sense of where they're at than if they counted individual units instead.

"The first customer connections to the BREU system occurred in August of 2020 and a total of 8 townhomes were connected to the system by the end of 2020. By the end of 2022 a total of 53 townhomes are expected to be connected to the system. A further 83 townhomes are forecast to connect in 2023 along with 4 medium density apartment buildings and the Airport Control Tower for a total of 143 BREU customer accounts forecast by the end of 2023."

The 2023-2026 Blatchford utility budget expands on this:

"[The number of accounts will rise] to 216, 290 and 442 in the years 2024 to 2026 respectively. By 2026, Blatchford Renewable Energy expects to provide thermal energy services to a connected floor space area of approximately 400,000 ㎡, with all of this energy coming from the first energy centre."
 
^
i think they must be counting connections by title or by meter, not by building.

i’m pretty sure that by the end of 2022 there aren’t going to be total of 53 townhome buildings connected to the system and I’m pretty sure there won’t be a further 83 townhome buildings completed and connected in 2023. i would accept those numbers for individual townhomes, not buildings…
 
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