[David A]

This is such a great looking development, it's just too bad that it's going to feel disconnected from downtown until those lots south of Epcor/CN tower are developed, which is unlikely to happen any time soon

It is nice looking and close close to the downtown core, but it would be good if the two lots on the east side of 101 Street on 104 Street were also developed soon.

While there are fewer empty lots and parking lots than a decade or two ago, there is still no shortage of lots to build on downtown here.

 

[archited]

If there is an aerial pedway from the Epcot tower to the Event Centre (this year) and when the 35-storey tower is added to Qualico's mix (this year) then we have a new Edmonton Design Imperative that is one of the most important additions to downtown in years. Qualico would then be positioned to add to "Railtown" all the way to the bridge over 97th Street and the land of the former Remand centre. THIS might be the most exciting development for the City in the near term.

 

[Mesopotamia]

Nice development but I would never live in that area. It is ROUGH

 

[ForestedImagination]

Anyone know if there have been any proposals/plans/interests over the years for that parking lot across 104th Ave (just below the MNP tower)? Would love to see some density on that lot of an eye sore in the city core as well

 

[IanO]

There was a tower proposed there back about 15yrs ago, but it went nowhere and continues to be one THE key lots that we must develop to tie things together.

 

[Gronk!]

I want that parking lot north of the MNP Tower to be a mid-rise/high-rise residential with a hotel (please make it an ALT), an IMAX Theatre, fitness centre and one or two pubs/restaurants to complement O'Byrnes.

 

[Barnaby]

I want that parking lot north of the MNP Tower to be a mid-rise/high-rise residential with a hotel (please make it an ALT), an IMAX Theatre, fitness centre and one or two pubs/restaurants to complement O'Byrnes.

A 15-25 storey Alt or Moxy would kill it in this location.

Also.... Montreal has really similar economics when it comes to the rental market, but I've noticed they're able to build concrete high rise. The overall architecture for new products is much better.

Lower incomes here (Montreal), too. I don't think we're getting the full story from developers in Edmonton.

 

[inclusion]

A 15-25 storey Alt or Moxy would kill it in this location.

Also.... Montreal has really similar economics when it comes to the rental market, but I've noticed they're able to build concrete high rise. The overall architecture for new products is much better.

Lower incomes here (Montreal), too. I don't think we're getting the full story from developers in Edmonton.

There are developers here who will still build high-rise. I think we hear from a specific developer on here why it doesn't make sense, but that doesn't necessarily reflect the entire market. There are investors behind these companies and margins that are promised. The products built seems to reflect whatever promises are made behind the scenes. I imagine if you were to contact various developers, you would get different answers on ROI.

As for architecture, Montreal is a very creative city with a ton of art and culture that is much more mature. Fashion is driven from there (and has been for years); the restaurant scene is bursting, the art scene is quite strong, etc, and I imagine that spills over into their urban design. For example, I recall having a roommate from Montreal about 20 years ago here in Edmonton, and I remember him commenting on various fashion trends here that had been in Montreal several years prior.

 

[constance_chlore]

A 15-25 storey Alt or Moxy would kill it in this location.

Also.... Montreal has really similar economics when it comes to the rental market, but I've noticed they're able to build concrete high rise. The overall architecture for new products is much better.

Lower incomes here (Montreal), too. I don't think we're getting the full story from developers in Edmonton.

I'm not so sure that Montreal really has similar economics. This is anecdotal, so take it with a grain of salt, but my impression was that rent was cheap if you lived in an older building, in a non-renovated unit, without a dishwasher/in-unit laundry, and so on. My third-story walkup apartment in Rosemont got extremely hot in the summer and had terrible soundproofing, but I didn't really care because I was paying ~$1000 for a 4 1/2. Montreal's vibrancy benefits a lot from the fact that artists, students, etc. can get by in this huge stock of older, livable but not entirely pleasant housing. We'll see if this situation survives the end of the lease transfer—there's tremendous anxiety about rising cost of living.

I had friends who lived in new builds in Griffintown, and I got the sense that they were paying a good deal more than people would pay for comparable units in Edmonton. My sense is also that a lot of the newer rowhouses in Rosemont, Villeray, etc. are condo, not apartment, and condos in Montreal are much more expensive than in Edmonton. So for a builder, I think the situation really is quite different between the two cities.

 

[constance_chlore]

For comparison: a 456 sq ft apartment at the Switch starts at $1334. Comparable apartments in Griffintown seem to go for ~$1650-1850. So not a tremendous difference, but substantial.

 

[Barnaby]

Anything in Griffintown would be more comparable location wise to Stantec (lower floors) or Falcon. Homelessness in Griffentown is basically non-existent compared to by the Qualico lands.

 

[constance_chlore]

Anything in Griffintown would be more comparable location wise to Stantec (lower floors) or Falcon. Homelessness in Griffentown is basically non-existent compared to by the Qualico lands.

Right, but that's something you have to take into account when considering "why are new builds in Montreal nicer than those in Edmonton?" (The Switch might not be the best comparison since it is—surprisingly!—pretty nice.)

And then there's the fact that Montreal just has a larger population of white-collar young professionals who see it as desirable to live centrally, even in areas like the Quartier Latin and the Village that do have higher homelessness.

 

[Kosy123]

Nice development but I would never live in that area. It is ROUGH

We kinda said all the same thing when this first opened, fully expecting that this was gonna lease up badly because Hope Mission and George Spady (before it moved) were right there. That's essentially plopping something right by the closest thing we had to DTES in Vancouver.

Nahhhh Qualico basically proved us wrong on that one lol

 

[archited]

Going back y-e-a-r-s, for the 15 months of research before I opened my venture in Fashion Retail -- The Great Canadian Short Story -- a project that focused on upscale "haute couture" for a location in Old Strathcona specializing in one-of-a-kind garments for petite-sized women, I spent time in each of Montreal, Vancouver and San Francisco to suss out expert fashion designers. I think that Montreal has always been the centre of Canadian fashion, nearly on par with Paris and Milan globally; it was (and I imagine still is) evident on the street in what people wear. Same, same for San Francisco with an emphasis on alternative wear. I met some very creative people through that exercise.
There is today a strong design current running through indigenous fashion design, speaking again to the concept WInPEx for the Rossdale area, a BIG win for Edmonton -- in pictures this is what I mean...

 

[constance_chlore]

Honestly if I worked downtown, I would totally live in this area. (Well, in this development specifically—I probably wouldn't buy a house in the nearby part of Chinatown.) Yeah it's a little sketch, but it's hard to imagine a more walkable area.