Unbuilt Projects

[_Citizen_Dane_]

It was the Eaton Center. The three tower proposal. I thought one of the towers was going to be an RBC building. I was a teenager at the time but I was ticked off that the proposal ended up with none of the towers being built.

Yes I too was a teenager at that time and ticked off as well. Eaton Center was quite the saga spread over a number of years and with at least 4 different concepts with some combination of retail, hotel, office and recreational amenities. I guess we ended up with the retail and hotel, although a much smaller hotel than was planned.

Super nerdy, but if anyone is interested, here's a great paper detailing all the political finagling that went on with Eaton Centre and why it turned out the way it did. It also delves into BMO and all the underhanded stuff they pulled to get the Tegler demolished.

 

[cpnfantstk]

@_Citizen_Dane_ thanks. I've skimmed through that before. I'll take a closer look at it. I was pretty disgusted about what I read. Bait and switch is a nice way of putting it.

 

[JNO1]

This was the proposed Raintree Place complex located on the east side of 104 St between 63 and 65 Avenues. It was to include a 16 storey office building and a 15 storey hotel that was to be operated by Hilton. This was in the Journal November 1981. Construction was supposed to start in the spring of 1982.

 

[archited]

Too bad it misfired -- it would have worked nicely there.

 

[JNO1]

Gene Dub's submission that won a City Hall design competition held in the late 1970s/ early 1980s.

 

[JNO1]

Before Rogers Place was built we had a number of different arena proposals.
In the recent past, there was the proposal by Northlands to expand/renovate Rexall Place. A 13 meter wide "doughnut" was to be added around the existing structure for new amenity space. 26 more luxury boxes would be built with the number of seats either unchanged or reduced by 600-700 (there were two different designs apparently). Cost estimated to be $225-$250 M.

 

[JNO1]

And Gene Dub proposed this east of 97 Street and between 102A and 103 A Avenues. $300-$350M. 18,000 sets. Ice surface on the third level. This was in the spring of 2010. Personally, I quite liked this proposal.

 

[Daveography]

Dub's arena proposal was a good'er.

 

[JNO1]

And before the more recent proposals there was a couple by Peter Pocklington in the early 1990s. The first was from October of 1991. 18,000 seats, 70 boxes (8-10 seats) and 25 super boxes (14-16 seats), $80M + a $35M 350 room hotel. It was to be built in a "suburban" location (not sure if exact location was ever disclosed).

And this one was a slightly upgraded version of the one above, unveiled in May of 1992. Similar details as above.

 

[cpnfantstk]

^ @JNO1 Thanks.. Never knew about a few of these arena proposals.
Think of the excitement of all the ICE District tower BG renders we can add here.

 

[JNO1]

A few more unbuilt projects to post on a rainy Saturday.
Here are some concepts for City Hall.
This six glass tower proposal was from 1978.

And this would have incorporated the old Civic Block/Police Headquarters on the site of what is now the Winspear (original building and new addition).

 

[JNO1]

Before we had the current City Hall with the glass pyramids there were a couple other concepts that were being considered.

And finally the cone proposal that was booed and hissed at by a great many Edmontonians.

 

[JNO1]

There was talk for many years of building a domed stadium in Edmonton.
Here is a cool looking design on the old CN lands. Looks to be on the site of the old Baccarat (& surface parking), current casino and practice arena. This was proposed in 1968.

And here is what was called the Omniplex. Looks to be on the site of the Brownlee Building/Remand Center/Police HQ. It was to include a trade center, arena and 48,000 seat covered stadium. Cost of $25 million. I think the City held a plebiscite and it was voted down. Mid to late 1960s I believe.

 

[_Citizen_Dane_]

And this would have incorporated the old Civic Block/Police Headquarters on the site of what is now the Winspear (original building and new addition).

View attachment 250002

This one's particularly interesting. I brought it up once before in the Winspear thread. Here's the article's text for anyone interested:

You come across some neat things while going through archived newspapers, and while not necessarily related to the Winspear, I though some on here might be interested in the project that was originally supposed to occupy this lot.

From the January 15th, 1987 issue of the Journal;
View attachment 204040

 

[archited]

In the foregoing several posts I am quite glad that what got built superceded what was proposed. We have better results than the thought flumps that preceded.