Scotia Place Reclad | 113.08m | 28s | Kasian

Looks good, I had no idea a (relatively) simple re-clad could spruce up those dated looking towers so well. The gold just wasn't it; it screamed "80s" a little too loudly.
 
Yes, I am disappointed to as I regularly go to that branch. It was bright, open and spacious, but it seems like Jasper Ave is going back to being full of empty spaces and homeless people congregated on the street.

The decision was probably made elsewhere and I suspect the Ice District branch will also be much smaller. If we should ever wonder why people outside of Edmonton cringe when they walk down Jasper Avenue, supposedly our main street, look no further than all the empty spots that have popped up in the last couple of years. I can only hope that something nice will replace the bank, like a nice restaurant or nightclub (it still is a grand space) and it will not become an abandoned space full of dandelions like what the former RBC main branch space down the street became.
 
Scotiabank also closed its 107 St and 115 Street Jasper Ave branches in the last few years. When I first came to this city, every big bank had branches along Jasper Ave - most had two or three, so over a dozen. Now, I think there is only big bank branch left and two smaller financial insitutions (one has two branches) all the way from 100 St to 124. Interestingly, the two smaller financial institutions are locally based so perhaps Jasper Ave means more to them than someone in a head office in Toronto.
 
It is a global movement, for banks to shift service delivery to digital methods and there's no stopping it. This trend has caught in the US, Europe, Latin America, basically anywhere you go, branches are being closed, consolidated or moved to smaller locations.
There's less people using cash every day, the apps and websites have much more options, sometimes much easier and faster to use than dragging yourself to a branch and waiting in line. Logically speaking, I don't see a reason for banks to keep 2, 3 branches in a 3 km stretch of road anymore. Also, because of the low traffic and very little interactive frontages, banks are TERRIBLE in activating streets and bringing life, usually killing entire blocks, especially in more recent years.
As Jasper Ave (and Downtown) becomes less office oriented and more residential/retail/food heavy, I believe it will be better for everyone to have other businesses where these banks used to be.
 
ChazYEG said:
Also, because of the low traffic and very little interactive frontages, banks are TERRIBLE in activating streets and bringing life, usually killing entire blocks, especially in more recent years.
As Jasper Ave (and Downtown) becomes less office oriented and more residential/retail/food heavy, I believe it will be better for everyone to have other businesses where these banks used to be.
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Which makes their movement into the CRUs of the Ice District very unfortunate.
 
I feel like the cost of downtown land and construction costs must be a bit over inflated in Edmonton which drives up the cost of leasing office and retail space and also the cost of condo units and rent. If all that was lower, I would feel more comfortable reaching those targets you noted above.
 
TAS said:
I feel like the cost of downtown land and construction costs must be a bit over inflated in Edmonton which drives up the cost of leasing office and retail space and also the cost of condo units and rent. If all that was lower, I would feel more comfortable reaching those targets you noted above.
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we‘ll teach those targets - and more - when the cost of leasing office space and retail space etc. Is twice what is now... the only way those will go down is if there isn’t enough demand.
 
Actually, it's quite the opposite, where we have a limited spread between the burbs and Downtown vis a vis.
 
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kcantor said:
we‘ll teach those targets - and more - when the cost of leasing office space and retail space etc. Is twice what is now... the only way those will go down is if there isn’t enough demand.
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I agree that rates going up will be reflective of more demand, but until then how do you get higher demand? By still increasing rates while there is so much vacancy?
 
IanO said:
Sure... but we need another 10-20k jobs Downtown and another 20-40k residents...
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Yes, we do, but they won't come from bank branches! It's a global trend and Canada won't be different.
Most branches are operating in the red or at half capacity because people just don't go there anymore, and the pandemic just made this movement faster and more intense.
I don't think I've ever been to a branch, here, with all of the offices and CSR desks occupied. Hell, not sure if I've seen more than half of it, and I've used a few different banks, for many reasons. That, plus the fact that a 10 thousand sqft bank branch, at full capacity, employs what? 20, 30 people, while a retailer with half this area employs more. A restaurant or pub with 20% the area can have maybe half of the same amount of employees. All of that while diversifying and activating the block much more than a sterile stained glass frontage that takes a whole podium and has ZERO interaction with the street, most of the time.
These jobs will also come from new companies from industries such as IT, which is still labour intensive and has a tremendous potential for growth (and seem to have, overall, a predilection for downtowns. Maybe it's a result of being mostly young adult territory).
It's naive to think that a few bank branches have this much of an impact, when they're actually part of another obsolete dynamic that's vanishing, either we want it or not.
 
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