[The_Cat]

'Devastating': Edmonton's Art Gallery of Alberta aims to revive dwindling membership numbers

Fundraisers and drives are bringing back numbers, but the Art Gallery of Alberta is still thousands of members away from pre-pandemic levels.

edmontonjournal.com

 

[Kosy123]

Edmonton Business Census results came out. I was curious about the downtown numbers and it's not too shabby.

89,000 recorded employees in the downtown municipal boundaries.

 

[ChazYEG]

Edmonton Business Census results came out. I was curious about the downtown numbers and it's not too shabby.

View attachment 703229

89,000 recorded employees in the downtown municipal boundaries.

That is a good number to see, but I also wonder how many of those are people working from home but technically reported as downtown just because their "base" is there.

 

[Kosy123]

That is a good number to see, but I also wonder how many of those are people working from home but technically reported as downtown just because their "base" is there.

Possibly? Anecdotal evidence for me is that downtown is far busier now in the daytime, but obviously not a statistic. I still think it makes for good publicity to have almost 90,000 employees "recorded" downtown for marketing and attracting residents and businesses, especially once we get past the 100k mark.

 

[David A]

Possibly? Anecdotal evidence for me is that downtown is far busier now in the daytime, but obviously not a statistic. I still think it makes for good publicity to have almost 90,000 employees "recorded" downtown for marketing and attracting residents and businesses, especially once we get past the 100k mark.

I also feel it is busier during the day than a year or two ago, so these solid numbers do support the anecdotal. Weekends and evenings still seem to be quite hit and miss, depending if there is a big event on or not, so I am thinking most of these employees are those working Monday to Friday, office hours.

Yes, this is good news, but it would be interesting to compare this to pre COVID numbers to see how close we are back to that.

 

[IanO]

Edmonton Business Census results came out. I was curious about the downtown numbers and it's not too shabby.

View attachment 703229

89,000 recorded employees in the downtown municipal boundaries.

BS

 

[IanO]

Sounds like Downtown CBD is going to get a new 'spot'.

 

[MacLac]

A Whitespot?

 

[bodsbods9090]

Ian, always the cryptic one making us non-insider guess and be on the edge of our seat for an announcement!

 

[IanO]

Sounds very Central, but not Pizza.

 

[IanO]

Even with these numbers, we have the weakest offering of Downtown retail options in Canada; Regina eats our lunch.

 

[Romanov]

That stat is wild! On the one hand I get why Edmonton might spend more on retail consumption, given larger disposable incomes and the variety of retail offerings available. On the other hand, surprised to see us so much higher than other cities and still have fewer urban retail options. Spoiled for choice, but in the wrong places.

 

[Payd1964]

That stat is wild! On the one hand I get why Edmonton might spend more on retail consumption, given larger disposable incomes and the variety of retail offerings available. On the other hand, surprised to see us so much higher than other cities and still have fewer urban retail options. Spoiled for choice, but in the wrong places.

In the wrong places? You can't force businesses and shoppers to go somewhere they dont want to be. WEM is a huge economic engine which provides retail options for Edmontonians and visitors alike. On any given day it welcomes many visitors to our City, and those visiting spend lots of money. The non Downtown portion of our population, has larger family units, drives retail spending.

 

[Greenspace]

High wages, lower cost of housing so more disposable income. Gateway to the north, people come here to do big shopping trips.

 

[David A]

In the wrong places? You can't force businesses and shoppers to go somewhere they dont want to be. WEM is a huge economic engine which provides retail options for Edmontonians and visitors alike. On any given day it welcomes many visitors to our City, and those visiting spend lots of money. The non Downtown portion of our population, has larger family units, drives retail spending.

Yes, WEM is huge, but it hasn't really expanded in decades. Likewise all our other malls. For a city with supposedly so many malls, the only new one built in decades here has been at the airport, while the city population has grown considerably. Our downtown is now severely under retailed, partly due to the closure of the old department stores which all had downtown locations. I think this will start to correct itself over the next several years.