buildings said:
I'm not fully on board with the notion that there isn't enough 'amenities' downtown to attract folks. In a few square blocks there's:

royal Alberta museum
the art gallery
Citadel Theatre complex (3 stages)
Winspear concert hall (soon to be 2 halls)
Landmark cinemas (9 screens)
Rogers place.
main library
legislature grounds.
warehouse park (coming soon)
farmer's market
Norquest College
MacEwan University

all within walking distance. plus bars and restaurants on almost every block.

what do Windermere or Collingwood or Ambleside or any of the myriad SW, SE or NE developments offer in comparison ?
Click to expand...
Yes, but there are also still lots of empty store fronts, more social disorder than many people are comfortable with and you have to drive to home depot to buy a hammer or a light bulb.

I would also say by the price of downtown condo's, people are not rushing to live downtown because of these amenities, so we have to do more or different things.

Clearly what we have downtown now is either not enough or is not working for enough people.
 
^ I get the point you're making - and agree with it - but I'll add that Dollarama has a reasonable selection of tools (including hammers and lightbulbs) that are sufficient for many downtown dwellers. I know quite a few who started their toolkits from there when they first moved out/in.
 
johnnyboy said:
^ I get the point you're making - and agree with it - but I'll add that Dollarama has a reasonable selection of tools (including hammers and lightbulbs) that are sufficient for many downtown dwellers. I know quite a few who started their toolkits from there when they first moved out/in.
Click to expand...
Also, a lot of people that live downtown are probably the kind of people who will just order that stuff on Amazon.
 
so what is it? lack of amenities, lack of retail or lack of single family homes in the CBD? personally I consider downtown to encompass lands between 95st and 124st, river valley to 107ave. I know others will disagree but lets not start that argument again. That means there are actually a ton of people living "downtown". I live in east Oliver and consider myself to be living downtown. I easily walk anywhere inside those boundaries and I'm 72 (knock on wood)... that is my 15 minute community.
 
Ultimately defined borders don't mean much, but Downtown is a distinct boundary and community from 95-111 from 97-105, but that said most folks would say Downtown, Wikwentowin, Quarters and most of CM/QMP would be their understanding of DT.

It's less the residents and more a real lack of office crowd, hotels and regular crowds.
 
there you go, talking about crowd sizes again.🙄 shut down the pedways and underground connections if you want crowds out on the street. and that's the last comment I have on the subject.
 
buildings said:
I'm not fully on board with the notion that there isn't enough 'amenities' downtown to attract folks. In a few square blocks there's:

royal Alberta museum
the art gallery (+ social disorder, the smell of meth at times)
Citadel Theatre complex (3 stages) (great when there are crowds, not so great when less people. also, much more difficult for parking now, with e-park machines removed)
Winspear concert hall (soon to be 2 halls) (see above. and I am not taking my bike when going to the citadel. I would consider the lrt, but see the art gallery note)
Landmark cinemas (9 screens) (one of the best secrets of dt)
Rogers place. (great on game/ concerts nights. it FEELS like DT should feel like.)
main library (yeah, no thanks. so many other libraries where one doesn't have to deal with social disorder, lack of cleanliness on the outside, etc.)
legislature grounds. (one of the hi-lights of the core, only because the Alberta sheriffs are very effective. this is not a knock on the city staff, but city staff, at the behest of council is far too lax, for fear of hurting any groups feelinsg)
warehouse park (coming soon) (but will it be maintained and kept clean? note, none of the renders showed anyone smoking meth in any of the images)
farmer's market
Norquest College
MacEwan University

all within walking distance. plus bars and restaurants on almost every block.

what do Windermere or Collingwood or Ambleside or any of the myriad SW, SE or NE developments offer in comparison ?
Click to expand...
I added a few caveats for ya.
 
buildings said:
there you go, talking about crowd sizes again.🙄 shut down the pedways and underground connections if you want crowds out on the street. and that's the last comment I have on the subject.
Click to expand...

At least he didn't mention "density" ;)
 
BASE said:
This might be part of the way to explaining why retail struggles so much downtown.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't consider Dollarama to be a source of range of quality tools, but perhaps it has a few things that might work in a pinch and yes people can order anything on Amazon.

So I suppose it can be a work around for the lack of nearby retail. However, then what is the point of living downtown when one of the selling features should be to walk to nearby places to get many day to day things?

After all, they have Dollarama elsewhere in the city and you can get Amazon delivered there too.

This isn't about making due and getting by in what has become to some degree a retail desert in the last five years or so, it is about making downtown more attractive overall.
 
IanO said:
Ultimately defined borders don't mean much, but Downtown is a distinct boundary and community from 95-111 from 97-105, but that said most folks would say Downtown, Wikwentowin, Quarters and most of CM/QMP would be their understanding of DT.

It's less the residents and more a real lack of office crowd, hotels and regular crowds.
Click to expand...
We also just need more residential east of 103st. Stationlands should help a lot. But we definitely need some activity in the quarters or along jasper from 97-103at to help Churchill and the CBD be less empty outside of work hours.
 
Yes, development in the area to the North (Ice District hopefully in the near future and Stationlands sooner) which are in close proximity to the downtown core, will help.

Perhaps the Quarters will eventually develop too and that would help also, but it has been a decade or more of disappointment. So I feel that will likely not happen soon.

As far as I can tell a lot of people in the downtown core are back to working in the office most of the time now, maybe not every day but fairly close. It seems quite busy most days.
 
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1937133721083146737
 
edmonton.taproot.news

On the agenda: Sewer lines, costly policies, community revitalization levy

This week, city councillors will meet to discuss proposed changes to sewers that could save the city more than $500 million, existing policies that potentially add millions to the cost of building municipal assets, and hear from the public about the proposed extension to the downtown community...
edmonton.taproot.news edmonton.taproot.news

  • Administration has set two days aside for a public hearing on whether to extend the downtown community revitalization levy, which would allow the city to use tax revenue from new development to fund projects. Part of the proposed extension concerns the $250-million event park that’s been proposed by the Oilers Entertainment Group beside Rogers Place. About $97 million of that cost would come from the province, $84 million would come from the group, and the remainder would come from the city, via the levy. Some councillors, including Coun. Michael Janz and Coun. Erin Rutherford, have raised concerns about using public funds to benefit private projects. Janz said that he wants this decision to be put to a referendum during the upcoming municipal election in October. He said he will introduce a motion at the meeting to refer the bylaw back to administration and see if it’s possible to add a question to the ballot to gauge support for public money going to the event park and its proponents. “I resent the fact that there are some good things for Edmontonians in this,” Janz said, “but they’re conditional on giving out a billionaire bailout. No government should be picking winners and losers. No government should be telling a city that you can only have critical infrastructure funding and long-overdue funding if you agree to pay off one private business.”
 
www.ctvnews.ca

Funding for $250M event park next to Oilers arena tied to future of city tax levy

One Edmonton councillor is questioning why the city should pay, through a tax levy, for a portion of the downtown event park project announced earlier this year by the province and the organization that runs the Edmonton Oilers.
www.ctvnews.ca www.ctvnews.ca

edmontonjournal.com

Opinion: CRL benefits downtown Edmonton and the Education District

Looking ahead, extending the CRL will enable Edmonton to continue investing in projects that benefit everyone.
edmontonjournal.com edmontonjournal.com
 
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