[archited]

I like the idea of the groceteria in the Ice District -- it seems appropriately sized for the market that it will serve, although I don't yet know the details. Costco, Walmart and Superstore are all car-centric entities that would seem way out of place downtown. What would suit downtown better would be a Trader Joe's or a Whole Foods, neither of which yet have any presence in Canada. Both of these are not publicly traded companies (although Whole Foods is wholly owned by Amazon which is a public company). Both support local food producers including Mom-and-Pop bakeries, confectioners, specialty meat producers, etc.; their buying is decentralized and neighborhood specific. They are, one store at a time, putting so-called superstores out of business; they are community friendly.

 

[Clearshades]

The question is, do you want your garden to be annuals, perennials or both. Right now, our downtown garden is planted strictly with annuals making it become an extraordinary task to maintain. We need perennials to ensure the garden will invade the that patch and spread. Families would be perennials for they will be instilling a downtown living concept to their kids...
Fix that first Edmonton and developers... you can't have a successful garden that tends to itself when you dont seed the proper plants. Chicken and eggs are sold as strictly combos only.

 

[dunno]

Cool, here's my opinion: please... oh please no Costco or Walmart in downtown. the curse of the $1 Costco hot dog will be upon us if we're not careful...

Walmart is a horrible company but they’re often the only readily available place poor people can afford to get things, as much as that may horror snobby urbanites in condos.

 

[dunno]

I like the idea of the groceteria in the Ice District -- it seems appropriately sized for the market that it will serve, although I don't yet know the details. Costco, Walmart and Superstore are all car-centric entities that would seem way out of place downtown. What would suit downtown better would be a Trader Joe's or a Whole Foods, neither of which yet have any presence in Canada. Both of these are not publicly traded companies (although Whole Foods is wholly owned by Amazon which is a public company). Both support local food producers including Mom-and-Pop bakeries, confectioners, specialty meat producers, etc.; their buying is decentralized and neighborhood specific. They are, one store at a time, putting so-called superstores out of business; they are community friendly.

Whole Foods is in Canada, just in Toronto, Ottawa, and Vancouver! They had planned locations in Edmonton and Calgary that fell through due to economic circumstances. Costco and Superstore (apparently... I’m shocked by the East Village store as a thing) have urban format stores too, so it isn’t like they can‘t be brought into an urban environment in a way that is still conducive to walkability and such.

 

[archited]

yes, @dunno, but they -- Walmart -- offer starvation wages to their employees and so exacerbate the poverty problem.

 

[dunno]

yes, @dunno, but they -- Walmart -- offer starvation wages to their employees and so exacerbate the poverty problem.

I agree — like I said, they’re a horrible company. I’m not defending them in any way. But there is a reason many poor people in walkable communities will take awkward bus rides out to Walmart, Superstore, and Costco.

 

[thommyjo]

How's the school situation for the core? I'm sure there's not huge need yet, but in the future, if one was needed, could part of the mall be converted?

I imagine its hard to fill any big box stores in the core going forward. But the sqft could fit a school if think? Thoughts?

 

[ChazYEG]

How's the school situation for the core? I'm sure there's not huge need yet, but in the future, if one was needed, could part of the mall be converted?

I imagine its hard to fill any big box stores in the core going forward. But the sqft could fit a school if think? Thoughts?

I think that's a good idea. Maybe not necessarily a traditional school, though. Last time I was talking to a friend from San Francisco and they have these tech schools for children, maintained by a consortium of universities and colleges, to teach kids in engineering, computer science and all kinds of science.
They have a special program especially for little girls, to encourage more of them to become engineers and scientists (professions extremely dominated by men).
I think the proximity with the Milner library would be a boost for an initiative, and it's not like the U of A, NAIT, MacEwan and Norquest lack interested people (both students and teachers) in being involved.

 

[JuliallThat]

I agree — like I said, they’re a horrible company. I’m not defending them in any way. But there is a reason many poor people in walkable communities will take awkward bus rides out to Walmart, Superstore, and Costco.

There's a really interesting urban format Walmart in New Westminster (metro Vancouver) at the corner of 6th Ave and 8th St, spread accross two and a half stories on the end of the old Royal City Centre mall. Of course there's free parking in the mall but it's all underneath. Even if Walmart is far from ideal, this location can do a lot to prevent people from taking their business out to suburban power-centres, and keep them in town. We all know the people that depend on Walmart are going to make that trip regardless.

 

[IanO]

If I were a betting man...

TD Garden expansion: 7 before-and-after images of the $100 million project

The home of the Celtics and Bruins is undergoing its first major enlargement since its 1995 opening.

boston.curbed.com

 

[archited]

From an architectural viewpoint I think there is an optimum case here -- reconfigure the Bay space into a central retail tower (remove the roof, take out key sections of the floor down to sub grade, pour friction piles to a depth condition for say a 50+ storey tower), rebuild the periphery of the Bay floor plate suitable to small-scale retail and hospitality with ground floor space also opening to the exterior, and reconfigure the attached parking structure so that sidewalk-adjacent ground floor space was also converted to retail and hospitality uses. On this basis the building would be entirely repurposed to a use supportive of the Edmonton City Centre and it would have a viable connection to the Ice District and, via skywalks, a connection to the soon-to-be built former BoM site. Most importantly, hire an Architect for the project that has some design sensibility.

 

[David A]

There's a really interesting urban format Walmart in New Westminster (metro Vancouver) at the corner of 6th Ave and 8th St, spread accross two and a half stories on the end of the old Royal City Centre mall. Of course there's free parking in the mall but it's all underneath. Even if Walmart is far from ideal, this location can do a lot to prevent people from taking their business out to suburban power-centres, and keep them in town. We all know the people that depend on Walmart are going to make that trip regardless.

If you are around long enough, you sort of seem to come full circle. We used to have a Woolco, Zellers, Army and Navy all downtown here in Edmonton ... all gone now. I see Walmart as not exactly the same, but serving a somewhat similar lower to moderate income level market. So perhaps a gap has been identified, although I suspect there are a lot of gaps in retail downtown Edmonton these days.

Personally, I am not a fan of Walmart for a lot of reasons, some already mentioned here. I also suspect if Walmart had other options, a location right downtown here would not be their choice either. In large part because they want generally want abundant free parking. I also think it would be best for the local existing smaller businesses in the area around if Walmart stayed away. One of the many problems with Walmart, is a Walmart store is good for Walmart, but not so much for the community.

 

[ChazYEG]

If you are around long enough, you sort of seem to come full circle. We used to have a Woolco, Zellers, Army and Navy all downtown here in Edmonton ... all gone now. I see Walmart as not exactly the same, but serving a somewhat similar lower to moderate income level market. So perhaps a gap has been identified, although I suspect there are a lot of gaps in retail downtown Edmonton these days.

Personally, I am not a fan of Walmart for a lot of reasons, some already mentioned here. I also suspect if Walmart had other options, a location right downtown here would not be their choice either. In large part because they want generally want abundant free parking. I also think it would be best for the local existing smaller businesses in the area around if Walmart stayed away. One of the many problems with Walmart, is a Walmart store is good for Walmart, but not so much for the community.

Precisely!
On that note, if the rumors are true, Sobeys might be going for a re-run of their attempted entry in the Downtown market. Maybe this is a good spot, since they have, now (13 years after their first try), the know-how on operating urban-oriented grocery stores (they're quite successful in Toronto) and the wave of new buildings and increased population of the downtown since they closed the store on Jasper in 2014 should make things quite different from their past experience.
That said, I personally would switch the FreshCo they'll open in Oliver's old Planet Organic location for the Sobeys in Downtown, exactly on the premise that there's already a Loblaws on the works a couple of blocks away and no grocery stores for low-to-mid income people in the whole area, whereas West Oliver is possibly one of the most affluent areas of the central region and will become even more so with the addition of the new towers being built there, making more sense for a Sobeys.

 

[David A]

Oh, I have so many thoughts about Sobeys downtown here ... the grocery store whose business model faltered when a 7-11 opened across the street. To be fair, I suspect the head office people were probably quite preoccupied with the Safeway almost debacle at the time so didn't have the bandwidth to focus on fixing this one location. However, I am an optimist. City Centre could actually offer a space that could work much better with nearby parking and LRT access than the previous Jasper Ave space did.

Although the first thing Sobeys needs to start with is understanding downtown Edmonton is not quite the same as downtown Toronto. I hope its not an either/or with the Oliver and Downtown options though. I think both have merit.

 

[archited]

We used to have a Woolco, Zellers, Army and Navy all downtown here in Edmonton

I believe that it was a Woolworths (same difference in the technical realm, I suppose). In reminiscence mode Zellers (housed in an exceptionally beautiful building by the way) had an excellent diner counter that had indescribably tasty open faced beef sandwiches with rich, dark gravy. In a similar vein the downtown Hudson's Bay store on Jasper Ave. in the bargain basement had a malted milk kiosk that, by memory, outdid any liquid refreshment that I have tasted since those halcyon days of a complete downtown in the yesteryear. And, yes, we took the streetcar from Alberta Avenue to downtown and later, just for kicks, rode it across the high level bridge which was also shared with steam engine passenger trains of the CP ilk in that era. The ride was a treat, unhurried and time insensitive.