Quote:
Originally Posted by Drybrain
Agree with all of that, but I'd still say it's much more alive on the streets than, say, Edmonton or Winnipeg, which are considerably larger. I haven't been to Edmonton in a few years, but as of 2010, anyway, I remember Jasper being an absolute wasteland--all the energy was always down on Whyte. There really are still an amazing number of parking lots to between Jasper and 106th Avenue, and Edmonton really had almost no develop,ment downtown for a very long time, which was bizarre given that it was almost as prosperous as Calgary. Now that there are finally developments lined up, Jasper may develop into a credible alternative to Whyte Ave.
Anyway, even Calgary is no livelier than Halifax, really, despite it amazing growth and the buzz you feel in that city. (Plus it's three times larger.) In Halifax, on a good night in the summer, when things align just right and there's a good crowd of tourists in town, the city feels VERY alive with a jolt of urban energy--that's when the potential really hits home.
And I'm hopeful. Right now there several large condo high-rises under construction that will probably dump a a thousand or so more residents right into the core within a couple of years. And downtown retail is slowly improving, and I think more people re seeing the core as a place to go for a night out.
Do we need a big department store though? Does any city? The Bay can still be a staple in some Canadian downtowns, but the days of the big department store seem sorta over...there's probably a whole separate discussion about the role of department stores in urban downtowns, but it seems to me like we're in a more specialty-retail era nowadays.
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Most downtowns are no longer the centre of activity. I'd say that in Edmonton, it's a bit more exaggerated with the Downtown/Strathcona dichotomy, but this is changing. Edmonton's downtown is probably 3rd in Western Canada (after Vancouver and Calgary) in terms of vibrancy, but Old Strathcona is one of the best, most vibrant urban neighbourhoods in the West that easily rivals the West End, Kits, Commercial Drive, the Beltline, Kensington, and Osborne Village.
Edmonton's downtown is in resurgence mode now, though, and you notice the change year in and year out. Downtown's revitalization has been going on for about 15 years, but it's only in the past 5 that it's really began to feel noticeable, I think. I'm very anxious to see what the core will look like in 5 years with the Arena built and part of the district completed, the new RAM built, MacEwan expansion likely underway, the Jasper Ave New Vision completed, Scotts Park and Centennial Plaza likely built, as well as many new condos and office towers contributing to higher day and night populations downtown. Things like the outdoor City Market on 104th St have made Vancouverites and Calgarians envious and highlight the tremendous potential of Downtown Edmonton.
As for why Edmonton's downtown is and has been this way compared to Calgary's, there were a number of shots in the arm this city's core took from the mid '70s until the mid '90s. The first was the completion of Kingsway Garden Mall in 1976, a mere 10 blocks north of downtown and was the largest mall in the city at the time (now second largest). It began sucking the retail from downtown, but it wasn't until West Edmonton Mall's first phase was completed in 1981 that things started to become more dire. Although much further from the core than Kingsway, WEM had such a gravitational pull as a destination within the city that downtown, which was the main shopping area of Edmonton at the time, began to seriously lose ground to the suburban megamall. Further expansions at WEM in 1983 and 1986 only added fuel to fire.
But, away from the suburban malls being built, another thing that was directly hurting downtown businesses in the '80s was something that many on here approve of: LRT. Although I do like that Edmonton as a city decided to build its LRT underground through downtown, the cut-and-cover approach was not kind to businesses on Jasper Ave which were siphoned off from foot and car traffic at times. On top of all this, new office towers and underground pathways and as a last-ditch attempt, even malls, were being built and pulling people from the streets with their unfriendly exteriors. Many blocks which are now parking lots were razed in the '70s and '80s for new, grand projects, which never ended up being realized when the economy took a turn for the worse in the late '80s and '90s. In addition to these issues, Edmonton was quickly losing ground to Calgary as the corporate centre of the province. First the oil companies left, but soon many Edmonton start ups in other fields, such as telecom (TELUS, Shaw) were leaving for the less restrictive and more positive environment of Calgary.
These issues are largely why up until very recently, Edmonton's skyline hadn't changed much since around 1990 when Commerce Place was completed. Edmonton spent the latter half of the '90s and most of the 2000s basically filling up vacancies that existed due to the mass exodus 20 years prior to Calgary. It took 21 years for Edmonton to build another office tower. That being said, while the view from the distance is only now beginning to change, the view on the streets has changed much more dramatically.
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