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Old Strathcona & The Garneau Real Estate

Slitch said:

Old CIBC building on Whyte ave, renovated to the tune of $1,500,000 by Beljan. The price has dropped by almost $1,000,000 since first listed over a year ago. I’ve been kind of monitoring this one because for the life of me, I just can’t see the vision here… Other than perhaps another bank that wants a giant, weird, obsidian black storefront, what kind of business would buy this?

Maybe it speaks more to my lack of business acumen but the only thing I can envision operating in a space like this is a strip club of some sorts. One large space with a bunch of semi-private closet spaced rooms attached? A functioning, industrial bank vault? A mezzanine for some kingpin to oversee the operations?

Anyone else have some insight on this project? lol
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Don't want to knock Beljan too much, but I find it kind of tacky how much black they use. The first thing any potential buyer should be thinking about is stripping off the black paint.
 
^ I am more than certain that that is a design choice of the Architect not Beljan (good clients stay out of our way when it comes to design choices 😇)
 
archited said:
^ I am more than certain that that is a design choice of the Architect not Beljan (good clients stay out of our way when it comes to design choices 😇)
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Yeah, quite possibly, but this isn't the only project of Beljan that's turned out to have a lot of black (see Station Park and the forthcoming Ritchie Hub if it's anything like the renders) and I figure they might be inclined to hire architects that go for that look.
 
archited said:
^ That they are (HSEA Architects -- https://www.hsea.ca/ -- the one Edmonton firm that has a (partial) grip on retail design -- their mantra is "black is back, baby!")
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Ah, didn't know it was them. I think the black looks great on the Mercury Blocks! But I wish we could have a moratorium on painting brick black.
 
^ Amen to that! In my world black is a shadow detail color -- as to brick, if it has a strong mortar reveal, I would look to staining the grout black to accent the brick, especially if the brick is a lighter shade.of red or yellow.
Screenshot 2025-10-06 at 1.41.19 PM.png
 
Brick works very, very well in a variety of tones and 'colours', including black or grey.
 
Unusual (but welcome) set of row homes approved for development on a big corner lot, just north of whyte ave. This was issued late in 2024. Hope to see this one go through just for some diversity in new builds in this area. Although im seriously surprised they didn’t opt for a mid-rise here.

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IMG_0834.jpeg
 
Slitch said:
Unusual (but welcome) set of row homes approved for development on a big corner lot, just north of whyte ave. This was issued late in 2024. Hope to see this one go through just for some diversity in new builds in this area. Although im seriously surprised they didn’t opt for a mid-rise here.

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View attachment 689065
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Given that a lot of the mid-rises in this area have been disappointing, I'm honestly a little relieved.
 
While I am sitting on the Tower 101 concept for another week and I have some spare time on my hands, I am going to take a whack at Gateway Boulevard from 80th Avenue to Saskatchewan Drive starting with a written program.
 
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