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Unfortunately now we are in an area that's I'm assuming all of us are, well what now?
We had a decent official proposal but never happened. Then recently there was the Photoshop proposal on post #1927 which I would gladly see in a heartbeat. Makes me sad to see this section of our downtown just sits with no direction as far as I can tell.
 
I was in the Bell Tower lobby a week ago and a group of people had gathered for the beginning of some sort of downtown walking tour. About 10-15 people The guide was giving a talk about the mall and without being too conspicuous I tried to listen in. It didn't give me the warm fuzzies. I could be wrong but the person was trying to argue that saving some of the west mall (the Eaton Centre) side was worth keeping as retail. Clearly, they've not read my memo.

It was hard to tell what the point of the tour was, or who the group was. It wasn't touristy, and it didn't look very business-y either.
 
Yeggy said:
It was never going to be that. It was a bait and switch from the start.
Click to expand...
You might be getting a bit too harsh and judgemental with that assessment. Construction was actually started on the first of those office towers before the market went to hell in a handshake and it was capped before reaching full height and converted to a hotel. That’s why the Delta has such a strange floor plate for a hotel (it’s much too deep) and doesn’t have the lobby and amenity spaces you would expect in a purpose built hotel. People sometimes forget that developers work in the market, they don’t get to make the market and it was 30 plus years before the office market in downtown Edmonton even came close to recovering.
 
Offworld said:
I was in the Bell Tower lobby a week ago and a group of people had gathered for the beginning of some sort of downtown walking tour. About 10-15 people The guide was giving a talk about the mall and without being too conspicuous I tried to listen in. It didn't give me the warm fuzzies. I could be wrong but the person was trying to argue that saving some of the west mall (the Eaton Centre) side was worth keeping as retail. Clearly, they've not read my memo.

It was hard to tell what the point of the tour was, or who the group was. It wasn't touristy, and it didn't look very business-y either.
Click to expand...
Interesting. I would make that argument too and actually now it seems two more tenants are moving into the west side which still has around 15 tenants, one currently has space in the east side.

Also the only real redevelopment proposal put forward so far also envisioned keeping some of the west mall and focusing most of the redevelopment on the empty former Bay and nearby space.
 
kcantor said:
You might be getting a bit too harsh and judgemental with that assessment. Construction was actually started on the first of those office towers before the market went to hell in a handshake and it was capped before reaching full height and converted to a hotel. That’s why the Delta has such a strange floor plate for a hotel (it’s much too deep) and doesn’t have the lobby and amenity spaces you would expect in a purpose built hotel. People sometimes forget that developers work in the market, they don’t get to make the market and it was 30 plus years before the office market in downtown Edmonton even came close to recovering.
Click to expand...
I'd have to think that the other towers were certainly bait and switch, or any kind of towers for that matter. I remember back in the day speaking with city planners and the head of the what I think was the Downtown Development Corp, and they advised me that there was no infrastructure or superstructure built for the towers, just standard retail space.
 
^
As a long-time member and ex-President of the Edmonton Downtown Development Corporation, let’s just say our memories in this regard aren’t the same…
 
kcantor said:
^
As a long-time member and ex-President of the Edmonton Downtown Development Corporation, let’s just say our memories in this regard aren’t the same…
Click to expand...
Hey... was there perhaps another pres, or were you the only one? If so, then maybe it was a planner that made the comment. This would have been latter 80s. When I asked about tower siting, the response I got was "no towers". There's no foundations, voids for eventual elevator cores, etc. It was a mall with a big anchor, straight up. Compare that with Manulife 2, that has the core elements already in place, constructed when the Manu 2 mall was built.

The exception would be the hotel, as you've described it.
 
As our late esteemed QE II once said, some recollections may vary. I feel they likely did initially intend to build towers, but at some point realized it did not make sense except to keep it to help move the rest of the project ahead.
 
if the mall owner pushes a retailer to move to another location, do they help with the moving and redecorating costs or is the retailer expected to carry all that cost?
 
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