Manulife Place Renovations | 145.99m | 36s | AIMCo | MdeAS

What do you think of this project?

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One of the reasons I think a smaller Simons downtown could make sense is because they have the two other locations here now. Also, unlike Calgary, there is no Nordstrom's or Holt's downtown here. so that could help them too.

It might not be the typical or obvious approach, but it could work.
 
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David A said:
One of the reasons I think a smaller Simons downtown could make sense is because they have the two other locations here now. Also, unlike Calgary, there is no Nordstrom's or Holt's downtown here. so that could help them too.

It might not be the typical or obvious approach, but it could work.
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There is no Nordstrom in downtown Calgary. It's at Chinook Centre.
 
Provide a more complete offering that the Bay and Holt could not.

This isn't about 'high end', but rather an offering that appeals to both young professionals and established respectively.
 
WEM has a non-compete clause as part of their lease with Simons, which is mainly why they chose Londonderry for their 2nd store as opposed to Southgate, Kingsway and SEC. Not sure if CCM or Manulife would be included this, but if so then there's another roadblock for them setting up shop downtown
 
If the Londonderry location permanently shuts down due to a lease dispute and the WEM location still exists with the non-compete clause in place, what are the chances of Simons opening a downtown location at ECC or Manulife?
 
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Here's hoping for Downtown Edmonton has nowhere to go but up and the least impressive offering of any city over 100,000.

Downtown Lethbridge had more offerings.

It's embarrassing.
 
^^^^ The ICE District will have a huge impact -- it will just take a couple of years to mature. An example to follow can be found in Los Angeles' Staple Center environ where it was a bit of a development desert for a few years after it was built and then... and then it became the centre for all downtown construction in Los Angeles, literally booming! Downtown Edmonton is ripe for Retail/Hospitality experimentation and when that happens... and when that happens... well lets just say your entire focus for Edmonton is on the present and the past; your crystal ball is very clouded and doesn't allow you to see what is coming.
 
I'm going to disagree with you there... for even if ICE D2.0 was built out, we would still have very limited actual retail.
 
IanO said:
I'm going to disagree with you there... for even if ICE D2.0 was built out, we would still have very limited actual retail.
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You seem rather certain of that given Katz/ONE have only provided a preliminary plan sufficient for zoning. Plans change even in the built form when opportunity knocks as we can see from the Henry Single announcement. We simply don't know what the future holds for ICE 2 or even if there will be an ICE 2 by Katz/ONE ... until we have some certainty.
 
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^^^^ Wrong 'O! There is a powerful correlation between Retail and Entertainment -- WEM is an excellent example of that -- and we are already seeing the development of additional entertainment venues in and around the ICE district. To be certain there will be starts and subsequent failures, but the trend line will underscore new development in the Retail realm. I understand that you can't see that considering your pronounced negative view on all things "Edmonton"... time will tell who is right (ahem... ME) and who is wrong (psst... YOU).
 
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IanO said:
Here's hoping for Downtown Edmonton has nowhere to go but up and the least impressive offering of any city over 100,000.

Downtown Lethbridge had more offerings.

It's embarrassing.
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To take it even closer to home, I happened to be looking at downtown Red Deer on street view yesterday. I think there is more retail on Gaetz Ave downtown there than on Jasper Ave.

I think what they (and other places) have downtown are small unique stores that serve the local market. We keep on forgetting that people also actually live downtown and nearby. These people are not being well served by being forced to drive to often distant malls or power centres for almost everything.
 
archited said:
^^^^ Wrong 'O! There is a powerful correlation between Retail and Entertainment -- WEM is an excellent example of that -- and we are already seeing the development of additional entertainment venues in and around the ICE district. To be certain there will be starts and subsequent failures, but the trend line will underscore new development in the Retail realm. I understand that you can't see that considering your pronounced negative view on all things "Edmonton"... time will tell who is right (ahem... ME) and who is wrong (psst... YOU).
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Sure, but density and alternatives are equally important.

Reality is a bitch.
 
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IanO said:
Sure, but density and alternatives are equally important.

Reality is a bitch.
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Yes, but people are not going to be enticed to live downtown by empty store fronts and struggling malls either. All these things need to work together.

More density is arguably better, but there is no magic number of people or threshold where our problems will be solved. I doubt downtown Red Deer has a large population, but yet they seem to have quite a few retail stores there.
 
One of Edmonton's fatal, almost universally agreed upon flaws, continues to be complacency and a lack of awareness compared to other cities, marketplaces, jurisdictions.

I'm not sure it ever really looks in the mirror or wants to accept constructive criticism.

*awaits the classic - 'why don't you do what you just wrote'

Manulife Place's fall from grace and the overall state of the Downtown (pre and post COVID) is a good example of this.
 
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