TAS said:
I would love to see Knack put in place a special committee to address this mall - with these 2 leading it.

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So it seems like the biggest changes to make the mall more of a destination & a centre that enhances the area around it rather than detract is:

1) increased feelings & perceptions of safety, cleanliness both in and around the mall

2) addition of residential units to the mall (towers?)

3) adding street facing retail to the mall especially along 102ave

4) some new anchor tenants to the mall (downtown forms of coscto & ikea ?)

Personally, I would also love to see a renovated movie theatre that saw the landmark upgrade some of their theatres to the recliner seats/upscale version of their other theatres. As well, a rooftop terrace/patio type space with lots of trees, similar to the space on manulife place rn.

What could/would a special committee do to enable those or other changes to happen, when the mall is all private ownership? Would love to hear other ideas of changes to form that the mall should take.
 
While I appreciate that at least one candidate had some vision here during our past civic election, I feel a smart new private owner is more likely to achieve some of these things on their own, rather than some civic advisory body.

However, I do hope the city makes an effort to facilitate anything it can to help out here.
 
Unfortunately, my perception of what's happening at this mall is that the ownership is just waiting for some sort of Miracle occurrence as it does not want to spend much. It would rather have businesses show up and do the work for them. Understandable that the company doesn't want to spend but the stagnation of the mall is proof that something has to be done bring interest back into the mall itself. I sort of wonder what would be the effect to the mall if there were a direct pedway from the stantec tower to the West side of the mall?
 
I mean the mall is still in receivership, and there's no news yet of new ownership.

Regardless, whoever buys it has to spend some money on renewal/renovations. The contrast between City Centre and Manulife is getting more significant now with the renos happening on the latter.
 
Kosy123 said:
I mean the mall is still in receivership, and there's no news yet of new ownership.

Regardless, whoever buys it has to spend some money on renewal/renovations. The contrast between City Centre and Manulife is getting more significant now with the renos happening on the latter.
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Obviously the current management, the receiver, is not there to take on anything major, so it is in a bit of a holding pattern now. Although despite this there still have been some positive tenant changes, so that is a good sign.

So it will be up to whoever takes over to make any bigger decisions. Manulife has a fairly small amount of retail and has always been targeted to a higher end, so I don't feel their renovations are any competition for City Centre.

However, the upgrades to Manulife do both raise the bar for downtown and enhance it. So hopefully they will encourage more positive changes elsewhere nearby as well.
 
David A said:
Obviously the current management, the receiver, is not there to take on anything major, so it is in a bit of a holding pattern now. Although despite this there still have been some positive tenant changes, so that is a good sign.

So it will be up to whoever takes over to make any bigger decisions. Manulife has a fairly small amount of retail and has always been targeted to a higher end, so I don't feel their renovations are any competition for City Centre.

However, the upgrades to Manulife do both raise the bar for downtown and enhance it. So hopefully they will encourage more positive changes elsewhere nearby as well.
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Is the High End in the room with us?

I don't think downtown is in a position to be too picky. Half of Commerce Place is still empty (Sunterra is closing next week perm). I imagine most buildings will be happy to take on tenants, assuming they can pay the lease prices. I'd argue that almost every building is competing with others to attract tenants to fill all the empty space (which is in every building downtown).

I like how the DBA continues to advocate for the return of 2000 brown baggers to the office, as if that will magically move the needle on all these spots leasing up again. If the main strategy and hopes of our downtown are that the public sector will save us, we are doomed. I would rather all that effort and PR be spent on attracting other businesses downtown (law offices, research - partner with the U of A/feds to open up nanotech or other stuff that won't fit at the U of A).
 
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inclusion said:
I would rather all that effort and PR be spent on attracting other businesses downtown (law offices, research - partner with the U of A/feds to open up nanotech or other stuff that won't fit at the U of A).
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hydrogen
AI/ML
information technology
gaming
startups
engineering
- just to name a few!
 
inclusion said:
Is the High End in the room with us?

I don't think downtown is in a position to be too picky. Half of Commerce Place is still empty (Sunterra is closing next week perm). I imagine most buildings will be happy to take on tenants, assuming they can pay the lease prices. I'd argue that almost every building is competing with others to attract tenants to fill all the empty space (which is in every building downtown).

I like how the DBA continues to advocate for the return of 2000 brown baggers to the office, as if that will magically move the needle on all these spots leasing up again. If the main strategy and hopes of our downtown are that the public sector will save us, we are doomed. I would rather all that effort and PR be spent on attracting other businesses downtown (law offices, research - partner with the U of A/feds to open up nanotech or other stuff that won't fit at the U of A).
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While I don't know exactly what will fill the rest of the Manulife space after the renovation is done, most of their current tenants are a bit more high end than those in City Centre so I feel it will be similar. Its not about being picky, but matching tenants appropriately to the building, so I don't expect to see Dollarama popping up there.

However, I as well as getting more office workers back I agree we should also try to do more attract a range of other businesses downtown. Enterprise Square is an attempt to do some of this and there are other spots downtown focused on that too. I feel it does not have to be either or, every bit helps.
 
Kosy123 said:
I mean the mall is still in receivership, and there's no news yet of new ownership.

Regardless, whoever buys it has to spend some money on renewal/renovations. The contrast between City Centre and Manulife is getting more significant now with the renos happening on the latter.
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There is little retail in National Bank. A contrast between Commerce Place level 1 and 2 and City Centre West is more the like ...but both a disappointment.
 
David A said:
While I don't know exactly what will fill the rest of the Manulife space after the renovation is done, most of their current tenants are a bit more high end than those in City Centre so I feel it will be similar. Its not about being picky, but matching tenants appropriately to the building, so I don't expect to see Dollarama popping up there.

However, I as well as getting more office workers back I agree we should also try to do more attract a range of other businesses downtown. Enterprise Square is an attempt to do some of this and there are other spots downtown focused on that too. I feel it does not have to be either or, every bit helps.
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I would normally agree, but the optics of the Mayor fighting the DBA and province, or vice versa, can't be good for either side. I think refocusing efforts elsewhere would be better for PR than dragging it out.
 
inclusion said:
I would normally agree, but the optics of the Mayor fighting the DBA and province, or vice versa, can't be good for either side. I think refocusing efforts elsewhere would be better for PR than dragging it out.
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What we should roll over because our loser Mayor is in bed with the City Worker Unions? Knack Knack who is there? empty head.
 
EdmTrekker said:
There is little retail in National Bank. A contrast between Commerce Place level 1 and 2 and City Centre West is more the like ...but both a disappointment.
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Yes, I agree Commerce Place seems to have been intended to be a larger general retail space similar to City Centre. In some respects I feel it was the canary in the coal mine for downtown Edmonton retail.

Built in the early 1990's, it never really took off that way. A lot was later used for office space, other things and some never completely used. So I feel it was a sign of the decline of our downtown that also has eventually also undermined the much more established City Centre.
 
I did a quick search online and unfortunately I got the answer I expected. The decades-long decline in malls continues ( approx 87 percent of them will close in the next 10 years). That's probably a US statistic but that probably applies to just about everywhere. How many malls do we have in Edmonton ? and how many are doing well?
@inclusion You're right about our DT to not be picky and I'll go a step further and say that any downtown for that matter.

Here an article about malls. Nothing most of us didn't know already. Don't mean to be negative but it's the unfortunate reality. It's an uphill climb and then some.

Shopping Centers will soon be obsolete
 
I read this and interestingly the complete article content does not correspond to the headline well, which seems to be a common problem these days.

What I got from the first part is on line purchasing will take business away but then mid way it veers into how brick and mortar stores can embrace e-commerce and ends with a more positive "how to keep your mall store thriving".

I find the twists and turns a bit confusing, but what I get from this particularly the ending is perhaps the death of the mall is over exaggerated. Yes, of course they have to adapt and change, but it is possible and doable.
 
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