Iron Horse Line / Station Park | ?m | 6s | Beljan Development | Hodgson Schilf Evans

[archited]

except for reducing lanes from 3 to 2. It just isn't practical

It seems that it would be if all cross intersections north of 80th Avenue were eliminated -- there would be nothing to slow traffic in two lanes which now faces controlled intersections at Whyte (a major one), 83rd Avenue, the Streetcar crossing, 85th Avenue, Saskatchewan Drive, and QE Park Road -- all traffic impediments. The right hand lane would be barrier separated from the two lanes for both parking and Sask. Drive access. I guess you haven't got the word that I am moving back to Alberta.

 

[thefreezebreeze]

There’s a couple of developments adjacent to Station Park that might see it benefit from some more proximal foot traffic in the somewhat distant future: Cook County’s expansion, street improvements west on 80th ave, Old Strathcona’s public realm strategy which will turn the area just north of Whyte into a “greenway” park/path. Better pedestrian connections south, near 81/80th ave, across gateway boulevard might help integrate the area a little more too. Especially for those poor retail spaces along gateway, all seemingly up for lease after one year.

Even then, I kinda think they’ve missed the mark with the Epic food hall concept… Been there a couple times now and I’m failing to see the vision, beyond maybe a corporate event space (which I think they’ve now mostly pivoted to). I remember Station Park originally being touted as an opportunity for new, emerging venders to break into the scene by offering relatively cheap “micro retail spaces”. And some of those spaces did actually work! DRTY Ice cream, a Filipino, small-batch ice cream store, which operates with usually one person in a 200sqft seacan, seemingly attracts more people than their marquee food hall!

I just don’t understand why they wouldn’t extend that thinking to Epic. Lease those spaces inside to new, interesting, emerging restauranteurs. Instead they opted for uniformly boring, generic food categories, brought to you by one chef…

Wait is that what they did with the food hall? I've been meaning to go but just haven't gotten the chance yet, and when the food hall was on 105 st downtown what you're saying is exactly what it was. A bunch of emerging restaurants in separate kitchens prepping different types of food. Weird that would move away from that concept.

 

[yeggator]

Sometimes these lines are invisible, sometimes there’s real physical barriers, sometimes a bit of both.

Kind of annoying that our central urban areas have really been screwed over by historic rail yards. The big CN railyard downtown is only finally filled and I think Downtown still carries lots of scars from that. And CP’s railyard in Old Strathcona still holds it back in terms of aesthetics and connectivity.

 

[Slitch]

Wait is that what they did with the food hall? I've been meaning to go but just haven't gotten the chance yet, and when the food hall was on 105 st downtown what you're saying is exactly what it was. A bunch of emerging restaurants in separate kitchens prepping different types of food. Weird that would move away from that concept.

Yeah, now there’s 5 kitchens, 2 bars, each offering some general variant of popular regional cuisine. They’ve each got some kitschy name, like the kitchen serving Mexican food is called ‘Puebla’. Though you wouldn’t care less since they are all completely devoid of any branding or personalization. The food I’ve tried is actually not bad and I know they’ve got some really talented bartenders running the cocktails but still… Like noted above, pretty soulless imo.

I remember going to the 105th street food hall and having a good time! The ordering felt a little disjointed and strange but at least there was some interesting stuff happening there! If im not mistaken, Backstairs burgers, who I think now have 2 locations, started there.

 

[archited]

Just for information purposes alone the CPKC rail aficionado for western Canada lives in Dallas-Fort Worth and the CEO is out of Calgary.

 

[Out of Towner]

Just for information purposes alone the CPKC rail aficionado for western Canada lives in Dallas-Fort Worth and the CEO is out of Calgary.

Stand to be corrected but historically I believe that Calgary was "more with" CP while Edmonton was "more with" CN and since Edmonton isn't a large terminal city, there isn't a big reason for railroad brass to live in Edmonton. A few year back however, the CN yard in Edmonton was reportedly going to play a bigger role as an intermodal reload hub because of limited space at the Vancouver port. The plan was to load containers onto trains in Vancouver and haul them to Edmonton where freight would be loaded onto trucks for distribution. Reportedly, that's less expensive than loading the trucks in Vancouver and hauling the containers across the mountains.

 

[David A]

I've walked past this place a lot and thought about eating there, and I always end up feeling like there are better options. Don't get me wrong—I'm grateful that Beljan took a risk and built something—but it doesn't look very inviting, or in the spirit of what people want from Whyte. Words like "corporate" and "soulless" come to mind. Then again, I'm not really the target audience for a food hall; they seem best suited to a lunch/happy hour crowd for nearby office workers.

The Whyte Ave area has many diverse things, but I don't think nearby office workers comes to mind very much when I think of it, so that may be part of the problem

 

[inclusion]

Surprised there are not TVs in the food spaces. We were looking to watch the game on Wednesday and hopping between places and glanced over and this place was dead. Probably would have considered it if we saw some TVs on with the game since you can clearly see the floor across Gateway. Hopefully, the apartment building south will go ahead sooner rather than later.

Using it as an event space or even just shows like open mic night would probably be a huge boon to the area and get some university aged folks in the door.

 

[wormwood]

Surprised there are not TVs in the food spaces. We were looking to watch the game on Wednesday and hopping between places and glanced over and this place was dead. Probably would have considered it if we saw some TVs on with the game since you can clearly see the floor across Gateway. Hopefully, the apartment building south will go ahead sooner rather than later.

Using it as an event space or even just shows like open mic night would probably be a huge boon to the area and get some university aged folks in the door.

Simple and brilliant. This would help.