- Thread starter Daveography
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ChazYEG
Senior Member
I like the impact it's gonna have in the area, particularly from street level.
That said, I really hate this big, ugly waste os space that's the Canterra. Such a prime development land, wasted with parking lot and small shops
goodcitywhenfinished
Active Member
I like the impact it's gonna have in the area, particularly from street level.
That said, I really hate this big, ugly waste os space that's the Canterra. Such a prime development land, wasted with parking lot and small shops
I feel as though there is still opportunity here to put up towers where the parking lot is and let the current retail buildings remain. It wouldn’t be ideal but you could create somewhat of a walkable multi use area with different “alleys” coming off of Jasper and 109.
That is to say that I don’t think the site is completely a wasted opportunity.
Platinum107
Senior Member
@ChazYEG You wanna know something even worse about this shopping mall? It's built over where Edmonton's past CPR railway station was - a beautiful old building that should've been preserved but, as the story is with many like it, the city and general public saw no value in doing so until after it was gone 
ChazYEG
Senior Member
This made me mentally cry@ChazYEG You wanna know something even worse about this shopping mall? It's built over where Edmonton's past CPR railway station was - a beautiful old building that should've been preserved but, as the story is with many like it, the city and general public saw no value in doing so until after it was gone
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such a beautiful building! But as @goodcitywhenfinished said, there's at least potential for that lot to be worthy of what was once there.Is there a thread in which I could give my vision for what I'd do with that? I'd love to let imagination fly, a bit, haha
archited
Senior Member
^^^^ Give it a shot right here!
_Citizen_Dane_
Active Member
Credit where its due, the Edmontonians of the day actually made a lot of noise and started a pretty big movement to preserve the old station — probably one of the city’s very first large-scale attempts at trying to save a single heritage building — to which the C.P.R. and City promptly ignored. To be fair though, by 1978 it was nothing much to look at (see attached photo): some genius in the late ‘40s decided it was a good idea to remove the cornice and plaster white and salmon coloured stucco over a beautiful stone exterior for reasons us mere commoners will likely never comprehend. Having said that I'm with you, what a great terminus for the High Level Streetcar it would've been. Funnily enough, the steel truss bridge that crossed over 109th, connecting the station to the track south of Jasper, was saved and sits at Fort Edmonton awaiting some likely to never happen future use (I've heard the City hopes to use it eventually to directly connect the Railtown trail across Jasper to the trail along the streetcar tracks, but that might just be hearsay).@ChazYEG You wanna know something even worse about this shopping mall? It's built over where Edmonton's past CPR railway station was - a beautiful old building that should've been preserved but, as the story is with many like it, the city and general public saw no value in doing so until after it was gone
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ChazYEG
Senior Member
Well, you're the boss, haha.
So, the general idea would be to integrate the whole thing to the Railtown Park. To do that, I' d dig up 3 or 4 stories for parking, so the commercial and residential users of the building are not completely alienated from using their cars (we all know that, saddly, the reality of being a transit-oriented city is far from close).
I would build twin towers, somewhere between 120 to 150m each, built on a large free span, with the whole ground level integrated to the currently existing stores the park and the street, with ladscaping that makes it feel like a continuity of the park (maybe even high quality synthetic grass. why not?). All of the stores would still be the way they are (maybe some recladding), with little park roads connecting them, in a sort of open park-mall.
The access to the bulding would be through a set of escalators, which would bring you up to the podium: a triple-height ceiling atrium, with non-reflexive glass. making up for lots of natural light. Inside, you would find shops, maybe a couple of restaurants and a space for street art performances, with a separate entrance to the commercial and/or residential levels.
A loose example of what it could look like, from the outside, is Tishman Speyer's Aqwa Corporate, in Rio, por example, but I would make the pillars taller and wouldn't close the ground level, just leaving the center column exposed, integrating it to the whole park/shopping mall.
Sorry if it sounds confusing, I'm not an architect and my knowledge of the jargon is limited. Now, I'd give a candy if someone here could sketch my idea, just so I could at least see how it would look like.
cmd uw
Active Member
Sure, there's plenty of space to redevelop the surface parking to higher density uses. Logistically speaking this is easier said than done. It's highly likely that many of the tenants have a provision in their lease that gives them access to a minimum amount of parking on a first come first serve basis. You'd have to either wait until lease renewal to remove this provision or negotiate this during the term which would likely cost you a lot. So in order to redevelop the site properly there's a fair amount of coordination, never mind the economics side if it makes sense to fully redevelop the site based on the returns you'll achieve based on the level of risk compared to leaving the site as-is.
We also have to acknowledge when this was built - late 90's if I am not mistaken. There wasn't much demand for any type of real estate in the downtown at that time and they did what they could to make it attractive to tenants and patrons. Since this was competing with the suburbans areas (and Oliver Square) providing accessible and free parking was likely paramount to get this development off the ground and at that time, satisfy lenders.
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_urbanite
Senior Member
Precisely. It's a product of it's time, much like Oliver Square is, and even Brewery District, which is a bigger missed opportunity than Canterra considering WLRT will be on its doorstep
ChazYEG
Senior Member
@cmd uw and @Grandinite I don't disagree with any of the points you guys brought up, doesn't make me less sad to see that piece of land in such a prime location like that. And personally, as a resident of the area, I don't think I ever saw the place justify the huge amount of parking spots they have, altough I can imagine that in the 90s and 2000s it might have been different;
KreationYEG
Active Member
Looking pretty good so far!
Avenuer
Senior Member
InHouse is moving very quickly on this - great to see!
positive1
Active Member
At this rate it will be finished before the Augustana.