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Warehouse District Park

Warehouse Park is a legacy project for the City Of Edmonton and it's astonishing that a water feature has been deleted. Any legacy park worth its salt has a water feature. Evidently though, the Warehouse Park team capitulated to the interests of the City maintenance team and the Downtown Community League. The additional work load of maintaining a water feature was too much for the maintenance department, a bridge too far for them, and the Downtown Community League needed their programming space in the pavilion. No other location for programming was suitable for them. It's very unfortunate that City Council and its Warehouse Park team couldn't get a water feature over the finish line. City residents in 25, 50, 100 years from now will want to know who dropped the ball and how.
 
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I recall recently the howls of outrage here that the Walterdale bridge had reinforcements welded along the arch. It was supposedly proof at how terrible the city was, how no one had any taste and how we all collectively accepted good enough.

The funny thing is that I constantly see shots of the bridge and skyline now and I don't ever recall hearing any comments about the bridge. It's almost as if some people will make a mountain of a mole hill given the opportunity...
 
Well that's two water features gone. One that never will be at thus park and the removal of the waterfall a few blocks east at our other downtown park on Jasper Ave..

As for the land on Jasper that is staying put. From what I remember of the owner, his description sounds accurate. He was in town at an LRT public presentation bunch of years ago before Valley Line LRT was even started. He kept claiming that he himself was planning on building a tower on his land and wanted to see how the future LRT would affect what he was going to build. His claim was that things were just being worked out. Well so far nothing is on those pieces of land. Hmmmm
 
tkoe_ said:
I recall recently the howls of outrage here that the Walterdale bridge had reinforcements welded along the arch. It was supposedly proof at how terrible the city was, how no one had any taste and how we all collectively accepted good enough.

The funny thing is that I constantly see shots of the bridge and skyline now and I don't ever recall hearing any comments about the bridge. It's almost as if some people will make a mountain of a mole hill given the opportunity...
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It looks good from a distance, but I don't think that is a good criteria for a park.
 
tkoe_ said:
I recall recently the howls of outrage here that the Walterdale bridge had reinforcements welded along the arch. It was supposedly proof at how terrible the city was, how no one had any taste and how we all collectively accepted good enough.

The funny thing is that I constantly see shots of the bridge and skyline now and I don't ever recall hearing any comments about the bridge. It's almost as if some people will make a mountain of a mole hill given the opportunity...
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It appears that the Warehouse Park was poorly thought out right from the start. Plans for the pavilion were made before all of the needs of its users were learned and that's the exact opposite of what should have been done. Now the competing interests of the City's maintenance department and the Downtown Community League has resulted in the deletion of a water feature. All great cities have a noteworthy water feature in their leading urban park and it's unfortunate when administrative bungling displaces long term vision.
 
Warehouse Park looks like this right now:
PXL_20240714_174232742.MP.jpg

It's very sad that we're losing such valuable parking infrastructure for a terrible park that doesn't even have a water fountain.
 
No point in having an elite international design competition when it's cast aside by local and narrow minded self-serving interests. City maintenance departments everywhere belly ache over having more work to do with limited budgets but I believe the vision of the Warehouse Park was for something more than a glorified playground with a facility where the Downtown Community Association could meet and program. So yes, why waste a bunch of money on a legacy project when its not to the benefit of all of the city's residents and the planning department could have done the job. Nothing against sporting activities but there are many older people in the city core that don't participate in sporting activities but would enjoy meeting with their neighbors at a fountain as elderly people around the world do. Why does that demographic no longer get a voice at the downtown park?
 
Tbh, pretty lame parks can be pretty “vibrant” if they’re busy and “safe”.

Beaver hills was actually a pretty cool park, even if a bit grungy. But the constant drug users, needles, and bike thieves made it not enjoyable.

I’m in Boston today and there’s so many awesome parks here. But many are simple. Grass, trees, some seating. But they’re FULL of people and very few people can be seen that are using drugs, homeless, etc.

The warehouse park (which can definitely be critiqued on design, as could most parks), simply needs people and safety and it’ll be a success. Amazing fountains and sports stuff doesn’t matter when it’s dangerous/dirty.
 
Barnaby said:
Warehouse Park looks like this right now:View attachment 580463
It's very sad that we're losing such valuable parking infrastructure for a terrible park that doesn't even have a water fountain.
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I'm much more concerned with the impact on the fire hall further up 107th that will now have southbound routes blocked.

I've read somewhere that a new fire hall is required as besides the blocked access the trains running in front can also impact on operations... Hopefully somebody includes those costs in the parks overall cost...
 
Habibfazil said:
I'm much more concerned with the impact on the fire hall further up 107th that will now have southbound routes blocked.

I've read somewhere that a new fire hall is required as besides the blocked access the trains running in front can also impact on operations... Hopefully somebody includes those costs in the parks overall cost...
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I was being sarcastic, I hate surface parking lots.
Southbound routes aren't blocked? The Firetrucks will have their own dedicated southbound lane. Northbound access remains available for all traffic.
Norquest Firehall.jpg
 
A kitty cat finally showed up yesterday and just broke ground minutes before I took this terrible quality photo.

IMG_6565.jpeg
 
Out of Towner said:
No point in having an elite international design competition when it's cast aside by local and narrow minded self-serving interests. City maintenance departments everywhere belly ache over having more work to do with limited budgets but I believe the vision of the Warehouse Park was for something more than a glorified playground with a facility where the Downtown Community Association could meet and program. So yes, why waste a bunch of money on a legacy project when its not to the benefit of all of the city's residents and the planning department could have done the job. Nothing against sporting activities but there are many older people in the city core that don't participate in sporting activities but would enjoy meeting with their neighbors at a fountain as elderly people around the world do. Why does that demographic no longer get a voice at the downtown park?
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This is not true. You give the community league way more credit than we really had influence on. We did a community engagement early on to see what needs of residents were and provided that input to the City. The major thing it included was around sports and recreation opportunities, but also need for general greenspace, and for the park to be safe. Also for the washroom to have a cafe or programming space would immediately ensure some measure of passive surveillance. From there they decided what they wanted in the park. We responded and pushed back where we could. Eliminating the water feature and adding room for Operations and Maintenance in the building has nothing to do with the programming space, which was always contemplated. To had had this pavilion just be a washroom would have been a huge wasted opportunity.

There were many other stakeholders that wanted more things that the City said no to for better or worse. I also agree eliminating the water feature is unfortunate, but doesn't mean the whole park design is somehow wrong, far far from it. I asked specifically about increasing the budget to include the water feature and were told that admin went to the Council once for a budget increase and wasn't willing to do it again.
 
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Greenspace said:
This is not true. You give the community league way more credit than we really had influence on. We did a community engagement early on to see what needs of residents were and provided that input to the City. The major thing it included was around sports and recreation opportunities, but also need for general greenspace, and for the park to be safe. Also for the washroom to have a cafe or programming space would immediately ensure some measure of passive surveillance. From there they decided what they wanted in the park. We responded and pushed back where we could. Eliminating the water feature and adding room for Operations and Maintenance in the building has nothing to do with the programming space, which was always contemplated. To had had this pavilion just be a washroom would have been a huge wasted opportunity.

There were many other stakeholders that wanted more things that the City said no to for better or worse. I also agree eliminating the water feature is unfortunate, but doesn't mean the whole park design is somehow wrong, far far from it. I asked specifically about increasing the budget to include the water feature and were told that admin went to the Council once for a budget increase and wasn't willing to do it again.
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What programming will take place in that space? I was hoping for something like a cafe since that'd mean 5-7 days per week of activation, but if the DCL plans to have regular programming there, or make it avalible for booking, then that'd be nice too. I'll be happy as long as that space is being used more often than not.
 
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