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I've been saying this for a couple of years now. There's hardly any new condos being built. The few that are being finished are turned into rentals, like the Falcon. Once a condo is a rental, it will be a rental forever. There's been a surplus for a few years of luxury condos, thanks to the completions pre-covid of huge major downtown projects like Fox, Ultima, Encore, Legends and Stantec, but that inventory is starting to dry up and there's literally nothing else in the pipes. Definitely worth keeping an eye on.
I've been around here long enough to remember a few decades ago when conversion from rental to condo was quite the industry here for a number of years, so it can happen.

And I can see some of those rental buildings being built now are being made with that in mind as a future possibility. However, I don't see that happening anytime soon.
 
I've been around here long enough to remember a few decades ago when conversion from rental to condo was quite the industry here for a number of years, so it can happen.

And I can see some of those rental buildings being built now are being made with that in mind as a future possibility. However, I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Downtown residential unit sales are up 92.2% compared to Q2 2022 and up 48.5% YOY, with only a 3.2% YOY increase in total listings. Not sure for how long, but it seems to me like the downtown market is rallying.
 
So after reading Ian’s post about the issue of gravel parking lots downtown, I was inspired to map out all the gravel parking lots and empty lots in the core of the city, as well as large paved parking lots and parkades. There’s another section called “Upcoming Developments” that is still a work in progress, and note that because the Google’s satellite imagery of Downtown is quite outdated, there might be a few mistakes.

Downtown Parking Lots
https://maps.app.goo.gl/PbQbgwqFbBkUPuHk8?g_st=ic

The map encompasses a large area of central Edmonton that goes beyond Downtown Proper (including Oliver and Boyle Street), and while I initially split up the core (kind of arbitrarily) into districts for my convenience while making the map, I decided to keep them there because they highlight some interesting patterns. Here’s what I noticed:

The Good:
- The actual Central Business District isn’t faring too badly in terms of empty lots and and paved parking. The main area of improvement would be street activation by increasing street-fronting retail. The parkades (especially by the mall) pose a challenge here, but they’re alright for now and do a key job of attracting suburbanites until we can improve the image of the LRT. The problem areas are mainly the north and south fringes, particularly Ice District Phase II and Stationlands, but at least there are promising proposals for these areas, especially now that Ice District has made this area much more lively.
- The Oliver area south of 104th Ave doesn’t have many gravel/undeveloped lots (those which exist are mostly off the main roads), and there are many projects underway here (which I didn’t get to map). There are a lot of asphalt lots though, particularly along Jasper Ave, which should be eventually be developed.
- In contrast to Oliver, the Brewery District north of 104th Ave has a lot of empty/gravel lots north of MacEwan, and large paved parking lots along 104th Ave. At least the architecture is nicer in the Brewery District, and there are a lot of developments underway here as well. Especially once the Valley Line is done, this area will see a lot of improvements.

The Bad:
- The Warehouse District just west of the CBD has a lot of gravel lots that are also prominently located by major roadways, on top of large paved parking lots. Warehouse Park and developments like the Parks Towers will dramatically transform the area, but there is still a lot of work to do here.
- The Government District/River crossing has a lot of empty grass lots, as opposed to gravel lots (although there’s one prominently in front of the Treasury building). This area is the first impression of downtown for many visitors, and it’s not a good one with these empty lots (and that’s on top of most of the buildings here being ugly concrete blocks). There aren’t many upcoming projects here either, despite this being a priority area to improve.

The Ugly:
- Chinatown is really bad. Lots of gravel lots here and the alleys are in horrible shape. There are also lots of vagrants in this area. The silver lining is that there are more businesses here (great restaurants and stuff) and it would be a nice cultural asset if we could clean up the drug and homeless crisis in this area.
- Alberta has the highest HDI in North America, but Boyle Street is literally a third-world slum. Mapping this area was just depressing. I’d say ~75% of it is giant gravel parking lots, and with most of the remainder being asphalt lots or rundown properties. And of course, these lots are full of unstable drug-addicts and vagrants, encampments, open fires and gang activity. I don’t know if there will ever be enough development in this area to replace these giant dead-zones, so I think we should consider building Warehouse Park 2.0 to help spur things along, but we’ll see no progress if we don’t address the drug and gang crisis. Honestly, I’m not too hopeful about the prospects of Boyle Street. It’s been a bad area for most of the city’s history and it has to compete with a lot of other areas in the core, TOD sites, and the suburbs to attract businesses and residents. It may evolve somewhat, but this will continue to be the epicentre of poverty and urban blight in Edmonton for the rest of the century.
A nice and accurate summary. Yes, the CBD is actually doing fairly well as opposed to 10 or 15 years ago, which some people forget, or those who have come here more recently may not realize.

The Warehouse District may be the next focus of where to improve and is already with some projects happening/proposed and the new park space taking out several surface parking lots.

We don't have much control over Provincial Government space, so I doubt anything will happen with the Treasury Building lot until it makes sense for them. However, the renovation of the old Federal Building did help and I have been around long enough to remember when Ezio Faraone Park was a parking lot (I believe for the Prov Gov't). So while slow, there has been some improvement here.

I don't think much will change in the remaining less desirable areas unless there are some specific or major projects, or until the empty lots elsewhere start to fill up more.
 
Downtown residential unit sales are up 92.2% compared to Q2 2022 and up 48.5% YOY, with only a 3.2% YOY increase in total listings. Not sure for how long, but it seems to me like the downtown market is rallying.

Seeing above asking offers for some downtown condos. It's definitely picking up. I don't think people fully appreciate just how little inventory there is in certain segments.
 
Picking up for sure, but pricing is still very much depressed... upwards of 20-30% off pre-COVID.
 
Certainly what I've seen in my building downtown. Units still selling in that range of discount. Lot of people losing money or underwater on Downtown real estate over the last few years.
Flood gates gotta open eventually. Call this a sunken cost fallacy on my part but the amount of immigration vs the number of homes condos and townhomes being built has to eventually lead to some appreciation. Especially with some big projects coming to fruition - namely the Park and Thunderbird Centre.
 
^How is Thunderbird Centre really going to have a material impact on downtown condo prices? It's not like it's creating a significant amount of jobs or anything of such. It's one part but I wouldn't say it will have much of an impact. Condo prices will increase with ongoing population growth, job creation and investment into the downtown and surrounding neighbourhoods. I agree that the condo market in Edmonton as a whole is 'artificially' deflated and I expect it to come back into some type of normalization.
 
Downtown residential unit sales are up 92.2% compared to Q2 2022 and up 48.5% YOY, with only a 3.2% YOY increase in total listings. Not sure for how long, but it seems to me like the downtown market is rallying.
At some point with such an increase in sales and only a very small increase in supply there has to be an adjustment in price. And if it doesn't happen now gradually it will be a more sudden and larger one later.
 
Anecdotally, I am also hearing a lot of people complain about worsening traffic with all the new people moving to the city. You have to think at a certain point there will be an opportunity cost factored into the price of DT condos, when you don't have to drive an hour home to the Hamptons everyday.
 
^How is Thunderbird Centre really going to have a material impact on downtown condo prices? It's not like it's creating a significant amount of jobs or anything of such. It's one part but I wouldn't say it will have much of an impact. Condo prices will increase with ongoing population growth, job creation and investment into the downtown and surrounding neighbourhoods. I agree that the condo market in Edmonton as a whole is 'artificially' deflated and I expect it to come back into some type of normalization.

Part of the reason why Downtown isn’t seeing the valuation growth that other parts of the city are is the local crime rate and perception of risk to prospective owners. Everyone I talk to in BC has an image in their head of downtown Edmonton that isn’t unearned.

Giving the homeless population a better place to be taken care of and housed further away from the core will help reduce local crime rates and visibly impact areas where those issues are currently observed.

TLDR? Push bums out and gentrify. It’s what Surrey did and now people are flocking to their core.
 
Part of the reason why Downtown isn’t seeing the valuation growth that other parts of the city are is the local crime rate and perception of risk to prospective owners. Everyone I talk to in BC has an image in their head of downtown Edmonton that isn’t unearned.

Giving the homeless population a better place to be taken care of and housed further away from the core will help reduce local crime rates and visibly impact areas where those issues are currently observed.

TLDR? Push bums out and gentrify. It’s what Surrey did and now people are flocking to their core.

So where should they be moved to? Ottawa, Ukraine or maybe somewhere closer like St Albert?
 
Depends. Affordable housing if they’re sober, asylums (not sure I should call them that) if they suffer from addiction or severe schizophrenia. And honestly, keeping those asylums out in rural areas (like where Alberta Hospital is) or light industrial areas (obviously not something like Refinery Row or beside a rail yard or chemical plant) isn’t a terrible idea.
 
Anecdotally, I am also hearing a lot of people complain about worsening traffic with all the new people moving to the city. You have to think at a certain point there will be an opportunity cost factored into the price of DT condos, when you don't have to drive an hour home to the Hamptons everyday.

My colleagues lives in Chapelle and his commute to downtown is now 1.5h, it's crazy. Personally I think it was painfully obvious this would eventually happen when he first bought at the edge of the city, but somehow he's surprised now haha! Of course it's somehow the city's fault now...
 
My colleagues lives in Chapelle and his commute to downtown is now 1.5h, it's crazy. Personally I think it was painfully obvious this would eventually happen when he first bought at the edge of the city, but somehow he's surprised now haha! Of course it's somehow the city's fault now...
Yeah like it's a cheap SFH/townhome at the literal edge of the city, what did they expect? lol and it's only going to get worse as time goes on. Gridlock from the south end of the city is going to at least drive some people crazy and maybe even consider to move in the future.
 

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