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As the City's 'Imagine Jasper' proposal seeks to reconfigure Edmonton's main street to make it safer for all road users, the built form abutting the corridor continues to evolve. The corner of Jasper Avenue and 109 Street NW is a paradigm of this change, which we've encapsulated in a set of images for this edition of Throwback Thursday.
The 1963 image above shows an unrecognizable intersection, complete with conspicuous cigarette advertisements tacked onto commercial buildings and the clunky cars of yesteryear travelling along the wide roadway. A highrise office building on the north side of Jasper towers over everything in the vicinity, while the now-demolished Mayfair Hotel can be seen on the south side of the street.
The current view reveals that a number of significant changes have taken place in the more than 50 years since. The old office building has been redeveloped into the Intact Insurance Building, which became the first office highrise in Edmonton to be designated LEED Gold. The existing concrete structure of the building was retained and retrofitted, with more floor space added to the complex. The low-rise building on the northeast corner was replaced by the oblong Executive Lofts building, which itself underwent a rejuvenation in 2003, when its office space was converted to residential use.
Across the street, the ten-storey Mayfair on Jasper replaced the Mayfair Hotel and its neighbouring surface parking lot. Another hotel further east, the Corona, was demolished to make way for First Edmonton Place and the LRT station of the same name. Today, a string of highrises line Jasper Avenue, forming a more-or-less consistent urban canyon of modern highrises.
Have an idea for a future Throwback Thursday? Let us know by leaving a comment below!
