What do you think of this project?

  • Total voters
    42
As to material costs -- the ingredients of concrete are abundant in Alberta; framing lumber and timber are abundant in Alberta; almost anything with a petrochemical base is abundant in Alberta (insulation, all manner of construction panels... on and on). Alberta has a massive and growing petrochemical industry, with a strong focus on producing essential, high-value building blocks for construction materials, such as polyethylene, polypropylene, and ethylene derivatives. As Canada's leading petrochemical producer, the province holds ~80% of Canada's ethylene capacity, driven by major industrial hubs like the Alberta Industrial Heartland. West Fraser is Alberta’s largest construction lumber producer and the largest in North America, with a massive capacity of 7.0 billion board feet. Operating numerous mills in Alberta (including a 2023 expansion), it dominates the market, far exceeding other national giants like Canfor and Tolko, which also have significant operations. Alberta has a specialized glass product manufacturing industry, primarily focused on fabricating, tempering, and laminating glass for construction and commercial use rather than raw, large-scale glass melting. Major manufacturers like Vitrum Glass Group in Rocky View County and Insul-Lite Manufacturing in Calgary produce sealed units, tempered glass, and custom architectural glass. What is lacking is imagination on the part of developers and their downstream hires.
 
Avenuer said:
Labour and materials (we are pretty far from any other major metropolitan area, so harder to get people to build stuff and also to get the stuff to build).
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Some building materials such as dimensional lumber and plywood / osb are less expensive in the Edmonton market than elsewhere. Reason being, commodities trade for whatever price a market will bear and Edmonton is close to mills in Grand Prairie and Slave Lake regions. In other words, the mill price for lumber and plywood is the same for everybody but it grows as the FOB price grows. As an extreme example, the FOB price of lumber in Edmonton is cheaper than it is in Japan because of the additional transportation cost (disregarding any currency adjustments). So could an argument be made that the lower cost of some building materials is partly responsible for cheap buildings? There is some economic theory to support that argument and if there is a market for cheap buildings, then in the absence of any regulatory or architectural controls to prevent their construction, they'll be built.
 
IanO said:
Average rents in Guelph are also SIGNIFICANTLY higher than in Edmonton.
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This is student housing project in a town about 1 hour drive from Toronto...But still they are going for quality and beautiful architecture.

It just shows how much local developers in Edmonton have lowered the bar so low that we end up with garbage right in the centre of the city coming from out of town investors.
 
Well... they got a motion of non-support from EDC... I just find it a bit concerning, since they mentioned that the project had a private review/ internal review, idk how they call it. And all, if not most, of the recommendations were already mentioned. I feel like the developer is not going to change the design a lot. Hopefully, hopefully.... they do address the window sizing at least.

 
While the rejection of the present scheme is grand (a majority), the implementation of potential solutions seems to be sitting on a rather weak palette of opinion.
 
David A said:
Maybe people pay less to rent in ugly buildings.
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Right or wrong, I think the prevailing notion is that Edmonton doesn't have enough people willing to pay more to rent in well-designed, attractive multi-family housing for all developers to feel incentivized to build such housing. This might be due to some combination of "Edmontonians have poor taste and don't really care" and "most Edmontonians/recent arrivals with money are looking to buy a house."

One of the basic issues is that when you live in a building, you don't have to spend that much time looking at it. It only really matters if you get some sort of pride or joy out of living in a beautiful building, and not everyone does. And indeed, economic studies have shown that a lot of the benefit from building beautiful or distinctive buildings accrues to neighboring property-owners.
 
We do have a lot of older rental stock, so that affects rates too, but I feel the poor taste and really don't care notions are wrong. When I looked at rental accommodation in the past, I paid close attention to how the building looked and that affected my interest and what I was willing to pay. Maybe I was more discerning than some, but I feel most people do pay attention to this and if affects their decisions.

Now, I was also planning to stay for a while. I suppose if it was more transitory, people may not care so much, so I agree with that point. However, I get the feeling as well a lot of younger people are not rushing into home ownership now, so they may actually want something nicer.
 
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