The Clancey | 103.02m | 28s | Wexford Developments | DIALOG

[Yeggy]

You are putting a lot of positive spin on Edmonton's employment distribution. I did not discuss homelessness or crime of downtown Edmonton. It remains a factor that are there are significant employment nodes throughout Edmonton that are not downtown. I am also not comparing to Calgary in any way. I have stated that due to a number of factors but not solely on downtown employment, it is difficult to make downtown projects work here. You can disagree all you want, but there are very few downtown developers.

I mean the actual facts isnt “spin” I’m not on the Edmonton Regional Board. I didn’t fabricate the numbers.

You are entitled to your feelings but the fact remains its the largest employment centre in the region.

 

[Munanyo]

As someone else pointed out, it's data from 2021, and it's averaged out. We were still in the thick of the pandemic, back then.
Base on the numbers regarding the workforce returning to DT over the last 2 years, I'd say out employment density DT is probably at around 70-75% of what it was 10 years ago. It's bad, but it's not THAT bad.

I also believe that this brings an opportunity to refocus the long-term goals of DT, from being primarily an employment destination, to being more residential/retail/entertainment focused.

While I don't disagree with your statement, I do believe that Edmonton must continue being aggressive in attracting businesses and corporations to setup shop downtown. This is where we need our business leaders, politicians, board members etc. to start advertising the city regionally and beyond Alberta's borders because having gainful employment downtown has spinoff effects, such as supporting restaurants/cafes/bars and having people want to actually be able to walk to work, thus having people (mainly young professionals) look for spaces to live in and around the core.

I know you're absolutely for trying to get business and corporations to come downtown. I'm just one of those people who tends to place a bigger emphasis in general in trying to market ourselves as a good place to do business and that our downtown has the potential to be a fun and lively place.

Imho as my visiting friends from Europe summed it up "something is missing" in downtown. It is hard to point exactly at one thing. I believe it needs to be safe, green, accessible. Not sure about the first one but some positive dev to mention for the other two: new park, legislation grounds redevelopment (hope they will keep the fountain), valley line LRT. On a bad side: people who decided to keep admin building blocking the most beautiful building in the city from riverside are farmers at best or just idiots. People who can't imagine city having gondolas are one of the two and so on. So Ian is right that most problems start with thinking.. although I believe that eventually the city will turn out just fine, river will always be here, water etc. and thinking will gradually change.

Downtown is disjointed. I've said this in the past, but there lacks a cohesiveness in the core that results in some lively pockets and then some absolute eyesore streets/areas that kill any momentum. I wish some CRU's could be filled with a mix of retail and niche businesses that cannot be found elsewhere, however without the critical mass needed to support that, we'll continue to just be hopeful of a successful cafe or restaurant filling these spots in and consider that a win.

In a lot of ways, downtown has come a long way. I think aesthetically things are MUCH better then when I even moved here 6 years ago. The Parks project alone will spruce things up quite a bit. But I think having downtown continue to become a residential and entertainment destination is as important as attracting corporations and getting crime/public disorder reduced.

 

[Yeggy]

Yes. I believe it would be much easier to repurpose some of the currently surplus office and commercial space for post secondary, rather than residential use.

Compared to many other cities, we do have a lot of empty lots in or near the downtown core, that and the empty office, commercial/retail space is what I feel mostly leads to the feeling "something is missing". I believe as we continue to fill in the empty lots, with mostly new residential and office/retail continues to recover from COVID, it will begin to feel less like something is missing.

As for sports and entertainment, ICE district and the arena already also helps to bring people downtown regularly at times it is not as busy. I feel we are generally on the right track, but it will take time and continued effort to improve.

We repurposed our easiest converted spaces years ago.

I wish we were a tad more creative. Sky view restos, Imagine doing yoga on the 30th floor, a multi floor night club. As these buildings often have highly centralized plumbing, what about a hostel.

Best yet, Empty out the Terrace building on the Legislative grounds, move everyone into a tower and tear that eff’r down.

Building it was a travesty to Urban Design.

 

[occidentalcapital]

We repurposed our easiest converted spaces years ago.

I wish we were a tad more creative. Sky view restos, Imagine doing yoga on the 30th floor, a multi floor night club. As these buildings often have highly centralized plumbing, what about a hostel.

Best yet, Empty out the Terrace building on the Legislative grounds, move everyone into a tower and tear that eff’r down.

Building it was a travesty to Urban Design.

Terrace building recently renovated and looks nice now.

There are much more significant things to focus on than tearing down occupied buildings.

Frankly the last thing we need is to tear down more stuff.

 

[David A]

I would agree that most of the space such as old warehouse space that could be nicely repurposed for residential was done a long time ago here.

We were actually ahead of the times a bit then and as usual we don't get much credit for it, but have to read in the national media recently about how smart some other cities only doing this 20 or so years later are.

However, of course repurposing really never ends. At this point the conversion to educational and other such purposes makes more sense for some of the remaining space which is not as suitable for residential.

 

[David A]

While I don't disagree with your statement, I do believe that Edmonton must continue being aggressive in attracting businesses and corporations to setup shop downtown. This is where we need our business leaders, politicians, board members etc. to start advertising the city regionally and beyond Alberta's borders because having gainful employment downtown has spinoff effects, such as supporting restaurants/cafes/bars and having people want to actually be able to walk to work, thus having people (mainly young professionals) look for spaces to live in and around the core.

I know you're absolutely for trying to get business and corporations to come downtown. I'm just one of those people who tends to place a bigger emphasis in general in trying to market ourselves as a good place to do business and that our downtown has the potential to be a fun and lively place.

Downtown is disjointed. I've said this in the past, but there lacks a cohesiveness in the core that results in some lively pockets and then some absolute eyesore streets/areas that kill any momentum. I wish some CRU's could be filled with a mix of retail and niche businesses that cannot be found elsewhere, however without the critical mass needed to support that, we'll continue to just be hopeful of a successful cafe or restaurant filling these spots in and consider that a win.

In a lot of ways, downtown has come a long way. I think aesthetically things are MUCH better then when I even moved here 6 years ago. The Parks project alone will spruce things up quite a bit. But I think having downtown continue to become a residential and entertainment destination is as important as attracting corporations and getting crime/public disorder reduced.

In most cities, it is the presence and concentration of corporate business and a financial centre that leads to a critical mass. It is harder to get that in a place that historically has mostly been content to be a branch plant city.

There are some places, like Vancouver, where you can get a lot more residential without a proportionate increase in the business financial core. However, I feel there are a lot of unique factors that makes it much easier there. Are a lot more people going to want to live downtown here without more jobs and more retail nearby? Doubtful. So it is not one or the other, we have to work on all of these things together.

However, we are doing well on creating an entertainment destination and that will help some too. Crime/public disorder are getting more attention now, but it will take more time and effort to improve enough to ease people's concerns.

 

[occidentalcapital]

In most cities, it is the presence and concentration of corporate business and a financial centre that leads to a critical mass. It is harder to get that in a place that historically has mostly been content to be a branch plant city.

There are some places, like Vancouver, where you can get a lot more residential without a proportionate increase in the business financial core. However, I feel there are a lot of unique factors that makes it much easier there. Are a lot more people going to want to live downtown here without more jobs and more retail nearby? Doubtful. So it is not one or the other, we have to work on all of these things together.

However, we are doing well on creating an entertainment destination and that will help some too. Crime/public disorder are getting more attention now, but it will take more time and effort to improve enough to ease people's concerns.

Historically Edmonton was not a branch plant centre. Historically was financial and business capital for Alberta until 1970s 80s ish. Not sure what you're saying here.

 

[David A]

I don't recall the early 70's or earlier well, but I believe Winnipeg was considered the financial and business centre for western Canada for much of that time. However, I am more referring to the last 40 years or so.