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Edmonton City Centre Mall (Renovations) | ?m | 2s | LaSalle Investment Management

I don't disagree with your assessment of Nenshi he promoted his city, was articulate and forceful in his advocacy for it, but policy wise the business community there (or at least a significant part of it) sure didn't consider him business friendly.
 
I don't disagree with your assessment of Nenshi he promoted his city, was articulate and forceful in his advocacy for it, but policy wise the business community there (or at least a significant part of it) sure didn't consider him business friendly.

That's because small business in particular had to make up for most of the depreciation of their empty office buildings resulting in some significant tax increases. And that's how the province has set up municipalities to function tax wise.
 
^Sorry to highjack. One more post:

Just a quick Google search came up with these 35 year predictions from 2009 for both residential and office growth for Downtown. Page 25 there is a figure about Downtown office employees. I would have no reason to believe this forecast has changed much (from the conversations I've had). We haven't seen any major company announcements for Downtown except Stantec during this time, so hard to know if that's already part of this. As you can see there's very little to no forecasted growth for office workers. Right now the daytime population is about 1/3 of this number pre-pandemic.

2009_OfficeWorksPredictions.png


 
And here I thought that I was bleak and negative...

Essentially stagnation over yet another generation, but hey, that's ok because 89% of that is pensioned public servants who aren't going nowhere.
 
^Sorry to highjack. One more post:

Just a quick Google search came up with these 35 year predictions from 2009 for both residential and office growth for Downtown. Page 25 there is a figure about Downtown office employees. I would have no reason to believe this forecast has changed much (from the conversations I've had). We haven't seen any major company announcements for Downtown except Stantec during this time, so hard to know if that's already part of this. As you can see there's very little to no forecasted growth for office workers. Right now the daytime population is about 1/3 of this number pre-pandemic.
And here I thought that I was bleak and negative...

Essentially stagnation over yet another generation, but hey, that's ok because 89% of that is pensioned public servants who aren't going nowhere.

To me, this is the biggest most silent not-talked-about issue Edmonton faces. If you go back 20 years, then look at that forecast out 20 years from now there is virtually no growth in downtown employment. This is a massive problem for the following reasons:

1. Downtown vibrancy - more jobs downtown will result in a higher portion of people living in the downtown area, taking transit or walking to work, or biking to work, etc.
2. More jobs and more firms downtown lead to more employment opportunities for graduates from U of A, Mac, NAIT. As is, there is a brain bleed of business and engineering graduates that choose Calgary first. If you dont believe me, that in itself is a problem that I have been told directly from the career center at the U of A and other Chairs or Directors at the U of A
3. More firms and more towers result in more commercial tax revenue to the city. Why is this also important? Because it would reduce the need for YOUR taxes to increase to cover tough times like today
4. Reducing the vacancy rate will boost valuations of buildings, which boost taxes to property owners, and will spur trickle down business (more restaurants, more meeting spots, more cafes, more eyes on the street, etc.)

When you factor in the explicit costs (more jobs, more firms, more taxes) to downtown plus the implicit costs (less brain bleed to other centers, more business growth in general, more eyes on the street, etc.) this is in my opinion the biggest most silent not-talked-about issue Edmonton faces.

The fact that no council or mayor, no organization (ex. Edmonton Global), no government (municipal or provincial) has worked over decades to identify this as an issue then address this is in my opinion why Edmonton continues to spin its wheels with downtown development and with commercial/business growth in general.

And this is not just a sentiment I have. I have spoken to many in the business community especially many leaders downtown who have expressed similar sentiments, in one way or another.
 
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Wow that chart is really depressing to see!
^Sorry to highjack. One more post:

Just a quick Google search came up with these 35 year predictions from 2009 for both residential and office growth for Downtown. Page 25 there is a figure about Downtown office employees. I would have no reason to believe this forecast has changed much (from the conversations I've had). We haven't seen any major company announcements for Downtown except Stantec during this time, so hard to know if that's already part of this. As you can see there's very little to no forecasted growth for office workers. Right now the daytime population is about 1/3 of this number pre-pandemic.

View attachment 459059

 
I also don't understand how we can have 2 large business schools and yet it seems there are minimal jobs for business students. I guess that is me being biased in thinking that business jobs are in the CBD ;). Granted, my office is technically in Oliver.
 
There are about 60-65k jobs in the CBD, majority of those are government. It's about 10% of Edmonton's workforce. Edmonton has a very decentralized workforce but the important financial, legal, etc firms are Downtown. So there's lots of opportunity, it's just the amount of workers is 1/3 of what it was pre-pandemic. People just don't want to come back to the office. It's not that it's happening slowly, it's that people just don't want to do it. That's a huge challenge.
 
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'it's that people just don't want to do it.'

This and it will be interesting to see how employers manage that as unemployment rates change, new strategic planning is done and opportunities present themselves.
 
Somewhat related but I'd be curious to see what the change in downtown Calgary workers throughout the past 10 yrs (ie. What were the declines as a result of 14/15 oil price crash, followed by COVID-19)
 

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