[Gronk!]

From City Centre to Data Centre - a bold proposal*

Edmonton is known for hockey, cold winters and a really big mall. One might argue that we have the really big mall - which was once the largest in the world - because of the cold winters and that our identity as a winter city fosters our love of hockey. It’s all connected.Recently one of our...

www.ethicallyalignedai.com

 

[IanO]

How about a Dell call centre... .. .

 

[The_Cat]

Data centres use up a lot of energy. I think industrial areas might be better.

 

[David A]

How about a Dell call centre... .. .

Bad ideas never seem to really die, they just get reincarnated as something else.

 

[MacLac]

How about a Dell call centre... .. .

Save those for YYC - the term "Fintech" is synonymous with YYC since Neo and Infosys - both Chinese and Indian companies brought "call centers" BACK to Canada and more specifically YYC since their large number of unemployed TFW's and cheap as borscht real estate in their OLD BAY building for $5/sq/ft. and other cheap empty buildings. We'll just keep being the Health and AI Hubs for the province and they can keep their "Fintech" title all they want.

 

[MacLac]

From City Centre to Data Centre - a bold proposal*

Edmonton is known for hockey, cold winters and a really big mall. One might argue that we have the really big mall - which was once the largest in the world - because of the cold winters and that our identity as a winter city fosters our love of hockey. It’s all connected.Recently one of our...

www.ethicallyalignedai.com

I'm down with this.....Glubish - if you're reading this...make it happen...why not?

 

[Offworld]

A data centre in the middle of a downtown? What are you people !?!?!?!?!?!? Why not the world's largest pickle-ball court, run by the city of course.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE STOP trying to repurpose what was Eaton Centre. Every proposal is a joke, a mean joke too.

Honestly, pay me $750k a year and I'd move to Edmonton just to head up the demolition and exorcism of that site.

 

[Gronk!]

I should point out that the Edmonton City Data Centre article I posted is a joke by the author, hence the grin emoji in my post.
I profusely apologize for my shocking inclusion of a sense of humor on SRC.

 

[kcantor]

This isn't a shopping centre, it's the latest of Bridge Studio's Sound Stages (Lake City):

The footprints could be readily provided within City Centre and the additional clear height could be readily created by removing the existing intermediate/second floors as required. The requirement for sound isolation between studios would provide lots of "width" as/where needed for any structural cross-bracing to replace the removed floors.

Doing this in the heart of downtown would provide lots of support in terms of hotels and restaurants and other services and in turn would support those uses.

With direct LRT connections, it would be easy to collaborate with the U of A, MacEwan and NAIT and would be an interesting add-on/tie-in to artists performing at Rogers Place that might want to record while they're here.

It's also something that would fit in well with the both the city and the province's desires to diversify and to encourage expansion for the film, television, and sound recording sectors.

 

[David A]

I should point out that the Edmonton City Data Centre article I posted is a joke by the author, hence the grin emoji in my post.
I profusely apologize for my shocking inclusion of a sense of humor on SRC.

These days what is a joke today, sometimes seems to become public policy tomorrow so it often seems to be hard to tell the difference.

 

[David A]

This isn't a shopping centre, it's the latest of Bridge Studio's Sound Stages (Lake City):

View attachment 682304

The footprints could be readily provided within City Centre and the additional clear height could be readily created by removing the existing intermediate/second floors as required. The requirement for sound isolation between studios would provide lots of "width" as/where needed for any structural cross-bracing to replace the removed floors.

Doing this in the heart of downtown would provide lots of support in terms of hotels and restaurants and other services and in turn would support those uses.

With direct LRT connections, it would be easy to collaborate with the U of A, MacEwan and NAIT and would be an interesting add-on/tie-in to artists performing at Rogers Place that might want to record while they're here.

It's also something that would fit in well with the both the city and the province's desires to diversify and to encourage expansion for the film, television, and sound recording sectors.

How about instead fixing many of the problems downtown and bringing back some retail, so the people living in the downtown core don't have to drive to Oliver Square for almost anything?

Maybe that is harder than all the pie in the sky ideas.

 

[buildings]

I think the old RAM would be better suited to make sound stages / studios out of the exhibition halls, Although I don't know what the need is. Allard couldn't keep their purpose built sound stage open.

 

[David A]

I think the old RAM would be better suited to make sound stages / studios out of the exhibition halls, Although I don't know what the need is. Allard couldn't keep their purpose built sound stage open.

Unlike Vancouver, Alberta unfortunately hasn't had the level of consistent support from various levels of government to make something like this viable here, which is probably partly why Allard couldn't make a go of it.

 

[kcantor]

How about instead fixing many of the problems downtown and bringing back some retail, so the people living in the downtown core don't have to drive to Oliver Square for almost anything?

Maybe that is harder than all the pie in the sky ideas.

For a retailer, it's less the problems downtown (not to minimize them in the least and you should know from my posts that's one of the last things I do) than a drastic glut of space and not enough footsteps walking past those storefronts to support their business.

Will fixing the problems help? Absolutely, but fixing the problems won't eliminate the glut and if we're going to reduce the excess inventory, my own preference would be to focus on our street oriented retail, not 50 plus year old suburban mall and large department store type spaces that there is no demand for.

 

[kcantor]

I think the old RAM would be better suited to make sound stages / studios out of the exhibition halls, Although I don't know what the need is. Allard couldn't keep their purpose built sound stage open.

The old RAM doesn't have enough clear height and the "waffle slab" poured in place concrete construction isn't nearly as amenable to being "opened up" to provide the required heights.