Open to provide a feeling of safety has now reverted back to becoming as secure as possible to reinforce it.

Maybe it's not the space, but the user.
 
Avenuer said:
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IanO said:
Open to provide a feeling of safety has now reverted back to becoming as secure as possible to reinforce it.

Maybe it's not the space, but the user.
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I think the old style of open parkades has come and gone long ago. This was a style in the 60's, although it never really made sense in this climate. I think this must have been one of the last ones built downtown in the 80's. Maybe some people are still fine with this, but parkades and safety concerns seem to go together for a lot of people, especially these days.

The old Bay Parkade south of Canadian Western Bank closed their open entrances several years ago and after they renovated the old one next to HSBC, I noticed it was not as open.
 
David A said:
I think the old style of open parkades has come and gone long ago. This was a style in the 60's, although it never really made sense in this climate. I think this must have been one of the last ones built downtown in the 80's. Maybe some people are still fine with this, but parkades and safety concerns seem to go together for a lot of people, especially these days.

The old Bay Parkade south of Canadian Western Bank closed their open entrances several years ago and after they renovated the old one next to HSBC, I noticed it was not as open.
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AHS has built a lot of open air parkades around the UofA hospital over the past decade. So they aren't that gone as you've stated.
 
Parking at a hospital is different than at a retail mall. Hospitals have a captured audience so they can provide a mediocre parking experience and get away with it. The parkade at a mall downtown in an area with a huge surplus of parking requires amenities, and here I would argue the bare minimum amenities are heat and security.
 
Above ground parkades in the downtown are tough to make the numbers work nowadays. Existing ones can do well but need to place a higher emphasis on safety/cleanliness in order to continue achieving higher utilization and rates. Most people prefer enclosed parking for comfort and safety reasons, which is why they can charge the higher rates. U/g parkades can generate a lot of revenue for a building.
 
Oddly for those of us who regularly go through City Centre, you see more and more of those office workers who aren't coming back walking by all the empty store fronts particularly at lunch time.

I haven't seen as many scary homeless people there lately, although I do see EPS a bit more.
 
^Latest estimates is that about 20k office workers are here on any given day. That's about 1/3 of pre-pandemic. However that will continue to be higher over the next month as more government workers return.
 
I wonder at what point it financially makes sense flipping from developing the property to support a captured audience to developing it to draw an audience in, and how they might conceivably do that.
 
Remember that this includes two office towers which represent 50% of the square footage. Both are mostly full. Plus parking revenue. So the retail is important but just in that context.
 
Greenspace said:
^Latest estimates is that about 20k office workers are here on any given day. That's about 1/3 of pre-pandemic. However that will continue to be higher over the next month as more government workers return.
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Who is left to return for government employees? City is back, province is back, and the feds are back as well.
 
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