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Can we please talk about ECC now? :rolleyes:

edmonton.taproot.news

Visionary says Edmonton needs to look elsewhere to re-imagine its downtown mall

Now that Edmonton City Centre's ownership company has entered receivership, leaving the fate of the mall an open question, one American urban expert who toured our downtown recently said its 1.4-million square feet of retail and office space should be transformed into housing or something that...
edmonton.taproot.news edmonton.taproot.news
 
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Gronk! said:
Can we please talk about ECC now? :rolleyes:

edmonton.taproot.news

Visionary says Edmonton needs to look elsewhere to re-imagine its downtown mall

Now that Edmonton City Centre's ownership company has entered receivership, leaving the fate of the mall an open question, one American urban expert who toured our downtown recently said its 1.4-million square feet of retail and office space should be transformed into housing or something that...
edmonton.taproot.news edmonton.taproot.news
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Sorry, I remain skeptical of these American "experts". White Plains NY, which was mentioned in the article is a suburban ish city with a population similar to St. Albert.

Our downtown currently has very little retail and I feel it is actually so bad that it is to the point of becoming a more of disincentive to attract more residents.

We may need to make some big changes to the mall, but further reducing retail in the area will not be beneficial, that is very delusional thinking.
 
JMatt88 said:
But isn't the problem also that retail does not want to locate downtown too?
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Yes that is also a big problem, the reasons for which have been discussed extensively here and elsewhere, but really have not yet been fixed by the city including: social disorder, safety concerns, tidiness and upkeep, attracting more corporate offices downtown). However you don't fix this by getting rid of the retail space still in use there.
 
I think I understand her logic, I just don't think it is completely applicable to Edmonton.
If you reduce empty retail spaces and add more housing, you also tend to create a better environment for the remaining retail areas by increasing population. One thing she doesn't consider, however, is the climate, for example. Also the size and function of the cities she's comparing are not even remotely comparable.
 
They should just relocate the entirety of the west mall to the east mall except for the Delta Hotel, the Gateway cineplex and the pedway. Then they can redevelop the west mall and parkades into housing, an expanded Delta Hotel, sports/recreational facilities, pub/live venue/nightclub, food hall, and a Hudson's Bay museum.
 
Gronk! said:
They should just relocate the entirety of the west mall to the east mall except for the Delta Hotel, the Gateway cineplex and the pedway. Then they can redevelop the west mall and parkades into housing, an expanded Delta Hotel, sports/recreational facilities, pub/live venue/nightclub, food hall, and a Hudson's Bay museum.
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That’s what I’ve been saying. Although Ian O’s significant other vehemently disagrees with me cause she says the western half of the mall is nicer.
 
I think a conversion to residential to parts of the mall would automatically bring more customers, but I think one way to present the mall is to perhaps try an example I saw in Japan. The is a section of the mall at Skytree that is a whole bunch of restaurants and boutiques. The mall looks more like a market and the retail spaces aren't as big, which allows many more businesses to be situated there.
Screenshot_20250822_130306_Google.jpg
 
ChazYEG said:
I think I understand her logic, I just don't think it is completely applicable to Edmonton.
If you reduce empty retail spaces and add more housing, you also tend to create a better environment for the remaining retail areas by increasing population. One thing she doesn't consider, however, is the climate, for example. Also the size and function of the cities she's comparing are not even remotely comparable.
Click to expand...
Yes, the logic makes sense in theory, but in addition to our climate this particular area of downtown is really not that attractive now for any other type of development either.

You can easily see this by the long vacant BMO/Tegler lot just south of City Centre. However, fortunately other areas of the downtown core do seem to be attracting some residential development.

Sadly the last decade has been extremely disruptive particularly for retail in City Centre which had to endure the frenetic shuffling around of tenants by the previous owner, COVID and nearby LRT construction that dragged on.

The remaining retail tenants really don't need more disruption now, so hopefully any redevelopment of the mall can be done in a way to minimize that.
 
David A said:
You can easily see this by the long vacant BMO/Tegler lot just south of City Centre. However, fortunately other areas of the downtown core do seem to be attracting some residential development.
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David A said:
The remaining retail tenants really don't need more disruption now, so hopefully any redevelopment of the mall can be done in a way to minimize that.
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I feel like the current state of ECC is one of the reasons for the low attractiveness, but you do have a point here. If something like was proposed by a few here was done: concentrate all current tenants in the East side of ECC and redevelop the west side into residential, maybe then it would be more realistic to have more success, on both fronts. A smaller, but busier and more vibrant ECC East would probably have a much safer feel than it currently does, and could do wonders for the area. And the West side is also closer to ICE District and other recent residential developments, so could make more sense. You could still keep some street facing retail bays in the podiums of the new developments, which I feel like would be filled relatively quickly depending on the success of the residential development.

Also, to your second point, concentrating the retail on the east side could be done with minimal disruption. Landlord could provide the current west side tenants with some time to prepare the stores on the east before moving them in, which would mean no interruption of business, and only start the redevelopment process after they've all moved.

This could possibly also result in a relocation of the movie theatre, if well planned, into a street facing area around ICE District, which could also be very beneficial and start changing the whole vibe from bank District to Entertainment District.
 
Gus Haynes said:
I'm not sure if this is a short-term aberration, but I noticed that, starting tomorrow night, Landmark City Centre is bringing back late-night (e.g. 10pm) screening times. I don't think they've done that since the pandemic. Kind of nice to see.
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Looks like it was just a short term or maybe a trial to see how many tickets they could sell. This week it’s back to 7-730 being the last showings for the night.
 
There is a common misconception here as well as elsewhere that retailers rent space when in fact they don’t.

Retailers occupy space but in reality they pay for right to be in front of the footsteps that walk past - and hopefully walk into - that space.

Without those footsteps the rent could be zero and there would still be no interest from retailers.
 
Markyeg said:
Looks like it was just a short term or maybe a trial to see how many tickets they could sell. This week it’s back to 7-730 being the last showings for the night.
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I noticed. :(

During this period, they also trialed earlier start times on Mondays/Wednesdays/Thursdays (where they didn't normally schedule matinees). Those are gone now, too.
 
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