What do you think of this project?

  • Total voters
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Temporary sign for Ice District's newest upcoming tenant - Servus.

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Overall, how Ice District commercial turned out is a letdown for me - although a few wins in there, too.
 
Gus Haynes said:
You have to believe that filling all this prime retail space with banks was their Plan C. Truly disappointing, for sure.

At least we got Bar Henry, I guess.
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I thought the ice district plaza area was going to be more of an event centre space - but instead we have OEG asking for more public dollars to activate more of its private property while ice district plaza mostly sits lifeless.
 
TAS said:
I thought the ice district plaza area was going to be more of an event centre space - but instead we have OEG asking for more public dollars to activate more of its private property while ice district plaza mostly sits lifeless.
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The dream would be something like Brentwood Centre's plaza but I understand that we'd probably need an anchor retailer facing the plaza or a large restaurant. Bank District isn't getting as much foot traffic in the area in non-office hours, the City Market is honestly doing much more work in that way.
 
Avenuer said:
People aren't even going into banks in-person much anymore, either. I have never banked with a 'brick and mortar' bank...ever (for example).
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I do deal with a couple branches in what should perhaps instead be called the Bank District now, one moderately more convenient than its other location, one less so.

While banks are not as busy as they used to be, sometimes they can be fairly busy, sometimes not. However, I don't get why they all want to be in this area.

It's not terrible, but I don't really find it that attractive either as someone who goes to the branches here.
 
It's disappointing for sure, but not really surprising to me at all. As a suburbs person I only really go downtown to eat at two restaurants and go to the occasional event. Brewery District is more appealing to me, it has more stores, easier parking and less visible social decay. Other then that I have all the stores around me that I need.

Downtown needs something more appealing then the same stuff I can get in the burbs without the total inconvenience of parking.
 
NicolBolas said:
It's disappointing for sure, but not really surprising to me at all. As a suburbs person I only really go downtown to eat at two restaurants and go to the occasional event. Brewery District is more appealing to me, it has more stores, easier parking and less visible social decay. Other then that I have all the stores around me that I need.

Downtown needs something more appealing then the same stuff I can get in the burbs without the total inconvenience of parking.
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I agree entirely. I feel like a Rec Room or something similar would be a great addition, for example. A better and more accessible movie theatre would also be great, maybe not as much for those from the suburbs, but for people who are Downtown or in the closer neighbourhoods like Winketowin, Garneau, Old Strathcona, QMP, etc., who currently have to drive far to go to a decent one, and have to deal with ECC (closest one if you're north of the river is on 137 Ave/Mark Messier Tr or WEM, and if you're south of the river it's SEC).
Another commonly mentioned thing is a good hardware store, and I wouldn't be mad at something like a Simmons or even a Mark's downtown (their Westmount location is not particularly great or large, and I feel like that whole area will eventually be redeveloped anyways).
I feel like keeping people from central neighbourhoods in the area, and bringing them to DT is as, if not more, important than attracting people from the suburbs.
 
ChazYEG said:
I agree entirely. I feel like a Rec Room or something similar would be a great addition, for example. A better and more accessible movie theatre would also be great, maybe not as much for those from the suburbs, but for people who are Downtown or in the closer neighbourhoods like Winketowin, Garneau, Old Strathcona, QMP, etc., who currently have to drive far to go to a decent one, and have to deal with ECC (closest one if you're north of the river is on 137 Ave/Mark Messier Tr or WEM, and if you're south of the river it's SEC).
Another commonly mentioned thing is a good hardware store, and I wouldn't be mad at something like a Simmons or even a Mark's downtown (their Westmount location is not particularly great or large, and I feel like that whole area will eventually be redeveloped anyways).
I feel like keeping people from central neighbourhoods in the area, and bringing them to DT is as, if not more, important than attracting people from the suburbs.
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While I agree people who live in the suburbs are not going to come downtown to go to the Winners in City Centre, what is downtown also needs to serve people who live in the core or nearby, who often seem to be forgotten or overlooked in this discussion. Then we wonder why we have a hard time attracting people to live in an area with such limited retail and we also expect people who do live downtown will continue to happily trudge to WEM to go to decent stores like Simmons.

It was unfortunate that the theatre visioned for Ice District did not go ahead, it could have attracted more people to downtown as well as been an enhancement for those living there. I suppose fancy new downtown theatre complexes are just for other cities only and we will just have to continue to make do with the theatres in City Centre. A Rec Room downtown would be nice and there are several spaces available that could accommodate it.
 
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