City buying up land to build a 'highly attractive' downtown park
ELISE STOLTE
Edmonton has decided to turn a second set of surface parking lots into a green, grassy park and is starting to expropriate the land from current landowners.
Alex Decoteau Park is being built on a city-owned parking lot. But this new park north of Jasper Avenue on both sides of 107 Street, is owned by four different companies. It’s currently a massive gravel parking lot north of Audreys Book and the Boston Pizza.
City officials brought expropriation proceedings to the urban planning committee Wednesday, then postponed the debate to Feb. 15 because one landowner said he could likely sell voluntarily before then.
Proceedings against the three remaining landowners could take a year.
“You don’t find an open space this large in the downtown, it doesn’t exist,” said senior planner Duncan Fraser, explaining why the city picked this spot to develop. It wanted to avoid hurting any existing businesses or buildings. These 18 lots are vacant.
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