What do you think of this project?

  • Total voters
    38
David A said:
Maybe people pay less to rent in ugly buildings.
Click to expand...
Right or wrong, I think the prevailing notion is that Edmonton doesn't have enough people willing to pay more to rent in well-designed, attractive multi-family housing for all developers to feel incentivized to build such housing. This might be due to some combination of "Edmontonians have poor taste and don't really care" and "most Edmontonians/recent arrivals with money are looking to buy a house."

One of the basic issues is that when you live in a building, you don't have to spend that much time looking at it. It only really matters if you get some sort of pride or joy out of living in a beautiful building, and not everyone does. And indeed, economic studies have shown that a lot of the benefit from building beautiful or distinctive buildings accrues to neighboring property-owners.
 
We do have a lot of older rental stock, so that affects rates too, but I feel the poor taste and really don't care notions are wrong. When I looked at rental accommodation in the past, I paid close attention to how the building looked and that affected my interest and what I was willing to pay. Maybe I was more discerning than some, but I feel most people do pay attention to this and if affects their decisions.

Now, I was also planning to stay for a while. I suppose if it was more transitory, people may not care so much, so I agree with that point. However, I get the feeling as well a lot of younger people are not rushing into home ownership now, so they may actually want something nicer.
 
archited said:
Then developers in Edmonton should not exacerbate that problem by building cheap crap that keeps rents low -- same story/different players from the 60s/70s when those damn walkups were being reproduced like rabbits.
Click to expand...
Those 3 story walkups in former oliver saved the dt core during the hard days in the 80’s/90’s

They were a decent size and reasonably priced.
 
Yeggy said:
Those 3 story walkups in former oliver saved the dt core during the hard days in the 80’s/90’s

They were a decent size and reasonably priced.
Click to expand...
Yes, a downtown that oddly during this hard days, which I still remember well, seemed to be doing better than now. Those modest income people took the bus from Oliver to downtown.

Some of the nicer newer buildings I think they just drive from their parkades to strip malls. In any event developers seem full of excuses to justify their current crap and everyone else is frankly getting tired of it.
 
New-ish development permit approved for this site.
Screenshot 2026-04-01 152642.jpg
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top