Tower 101 | 175m | 50s | Regency Developments | DER + Associates

What do you think of this project?

  • Total voters
    53
ADob said:
I just heard back from Anne Stevenson:

Thank you for reaching out about the old BMO site, and for your help in stopping the Arlington parking lot. I appreciate your frustration with the current state of the BMO site and your lack of enthusiasm for Westrich's proposed surface parking lot. While it's not a decision that's coming to Council, I'll confess that I feel I could live with what Westrich is proposing. You're absolutely right that there's a huge risk of us suffering from goodenough-ism but I'm also mindful of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the better-than-what's-there-now. The imperative for me is moving the site into new hands and helping make that viable for a proven developer is something I'm open to. Even with the allowance for parking revenue, it's still looking like an exceptionally hard site to make viable and I'm worried we'll be stuck with the status quo indefinitely without some concessions being made.

I know that's not ideal and I hope that you don't give up! Thanks to community voices like yours, we're seeing other progress with our unlicensed parking lot initiative, including lots being closed down and other lands changing hands - all the things we want to be seeing happen to build a stronger downtown.

Thanks again for reaching out and for all your great advocacy. If you wanted to chat further, don't hesitate to let me know and we could grab a coffee.

Not perfect, but a thoughtful response nevertheless. I was surprised about the offer of coffee!
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This response is exactly why I'm not confident in the slightest about the development of downtown.
 
Who would have believed that in 2026 we would still be building new parking lots downtown?

....ok maybe most of us. It is easy to believe that in 10 years from now we might have more new parking lots even as old ones get developed.

There is also some fun irony (cognitive dissonance?) in the same developer not putting any parking in the Lotus project, highlighting access to transit and walkability, then putting in two new surface lots downtown.
 
Currently Edmonton is 3 steps forward, one step back when it comes to the surface parking battle. Westrich is helping more than they're hurting the core.

This is still the fault of the city. The site should be taxed at the same rate as when the BMO building was standing, but since this country taxes improvements, this type of action is incentivized.

We can complain about surface parking lots all day and night, but the insistence on taxing good behaviour (building valuable spaces) is the big issue here.
 
Barnaby said:
Currently Edmonton is 3 steps forward, one step back when it comes to the surface parking battle. Westrich is helping more than they're hurting the core.

This is still the fault of the city. The site should be taxed at the same rate as when the BMO building was standing, but since this country taxes improvements, this type of action is incentivized.

We can complain about surface parking lots all day and night, but the insistence on taxing good behaviour (building valuable spaces) is the big issue here.
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The Quarters will see a few parking lots gone as well. Thanks Gene Dub and E4C project.
 
^^^The last 30 years has seen a steady, if not slow, decrease in the amount and number of surface parking lots in the dt area.

Have there been a few back tracks sure, but that is life.
 
Barnaby said:
Currently Edmonton is 3 steps forward, one step back when it comes to the surface parking battle. Westrich is helping more than they're hurting the core.

This is still the fault of the city. The site should be taxed at the same rate as when the BMO building was standing, but since this country taxes improvements, this type of action is incentivized.

We can complain about surface parking lots all day and night, but the insistence on taxing good behaviour (building valuable spaces) is the big issue here.
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I agree the city bears responsibility here, the company is just reacting to the perverse incentives here. Until the city fixes this, others will do the same.
 
Mesopotamia said:
I’m gonna laugh if Westrich builds a 6 story wood frame on this site
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Well, wouldn't that be a comparable size to the building that was torn down? Perhaps it would have saved everyone almost a decade of grief if instead of tearing it down the owners did a residential conversion or something.
 
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