[BASE]

Having places of interest to build upon are certainly important.

Momentum takes time but as ice district itself is now filling out that allows for the next phases to be proceed confidently.

 

[David A]

^ We almost need more.. subpar yet affordable CRUs in downtown. There is clearly a disconnect between who and what can afford rents on new developments, and developers won't/can't budge on psf rates due to valuation. The most active and alive street downtown, 104th, is plagued by Fox's forever empty CRUs. Whyte, for all of how expensive it can be, does have a number of more affordable retail spaces that a lot of unique little shops open up into that allows them to grow into the more pricey spots, fostering growth.

Look at From Another, a local streetwear retail shop, who started out in a dinky little micro CRU that doesn't even face Whyte on 101st, then grew into an upstairs unit on Whyte and 105th, and now a ground level CRU on Whyte (plus a store in Calgary!). While it of course is very much a Whyte Ave type of store, there is zero chance a similar retail startup could ever make it work downtown unless they have deep pockets and a high risk tolerance.

One of the problems with the newer buildings downtown is some tend to let the retail space stay empty for a long time, rather than give tenants a deal. I don't think that is always a good financial decision. Whyte does have an stock of older buildings where the spaces are better sized for newer/smaller retailers and landlords are sometimes more flexible. It is already an established retail destination.

Downtown isn't really a street wear destination, however it does have some more upscale stores. I think that is probably the type of stores some of those long vacant retail spaces downtown hope to attract, if ever enough people go back to working in the office.

 

[Greenspace]

^Trust me people are thinking and working on this problem Can't force landlords to rent spaces they don't want to rent for cheaper.. Or are terrible to work with, or don't know what retailers need.

Hoping in the near future we can do more to address retail needs and attract those to Downtown. Easier said that done but it needs to be thoroughly discussed and at least try to address. I think we could put a plan together to match vacant retail spaces with small independents for example.

 

[soupcrate]

^Trust me people are thinking and working on this problem Can't force landlords to rent spaces they don't want to rent for cheaper.. Or are terrible to work with, or don't know what retailers need.

Hoping in the near future we can do more to address retail needs and attract those to Downtown. Easier said that done but it needs to be thoroughly discussed and at least try to address. I think we could put a plan together to match vacant retail spaces with small independents for example.

Honestly, these misaligned incentives seem like they are really just a product of bad due diligence from lenders.

The property owners don't want to reduce rents (even if it would increase overallrevenue) because lenders' appraisal of their building is a function of the total rent they can theoretically charge. But that's meaningless if 80% of the bays have been vacant for years.

Lenders need to weight actual cash flows a lot higher when calculating property valuations. A lot of these vacancy issues seem to be downstream of this shell game property owners are playing with lenders.

Please correct me if I'm wrong about this because I would be much happier if I knew our real estate market wasn't this disfunctional.

 

[northlands]

One of the problems with the newer buildings downtown is some tend to let the retail space stay empty for a long time, rather than give tenants a deal. I don't think that is always a good financial decision. Whyte does have an stock of older buildings where the spaces are better sized for newer/smaller retailers and landlords are sometimes more flexible. It is already an established retail destination.

Downtown isn't really a street wear destination, however it does have some more upscale stores. I think that is probably the type of stores some of those long vacant retail spaces downtown hope to attract, if ever enough people go back to working in the office.

Exactly the issue--but again it's a problem of valuations. An empty CRU with potential to get $X psf is more valuable than a non-grade A tenant paying less than $X psf. Majority of developers and larger portfolio ownership groups will thus prefer empty spaces over the other, while smaller owners (like you see around Whyte) prefer the cash flow.

Sorry if my post wasn't clear--not saying a streetwear shop for downtown (was just an example), but for anyone looking to open a new retail business, downtown is a pretty awful place to do it, and even a pretty awful place to expand into--hence why we see so incredibly little of it in our downtown core that isn't the usual bank/pharmacy/potshop. We could really use those sorts of grass roots retail options in dt to spur some retail momentum.

 

[David A]

I think if we just keep on saying how awful downtown is, it will not help attract new retail business, which is something I think that is badly needed to improve it.

There is a suburban mentality about how scary and bad downtown is, that tends to be perpetuated by people who seldom visit it or start to stay away. It perpetuates and makes the cycle worse. There is a lots of crime and problems in more suburban areas too, but perhaps this is not as visible.

What is also forgotten in this, is people actually already live downtown. In addition people will actually live in The Parks in a few years, I hope there will be more retail around for them than there is now. I suspect there will be improvement as COVID decimated both downtown and Whyte Ave retail and we are recovering from that. I believe Whyte Ave may recover faster in part as the area has buildings and owners that are more flexible for a variety of independent local retail businesses.

 

[Clearshades]

Right now, downtown is not that great!

 

[Munanyo]

Personally, I don't think downtown will see much retail gravitate there for years to come. Whyte Ave has long been established as the premier destination for retail to set up shop due to it being by far our most walkable/dense area in the city, and for there already being a number of independent or small chain clothing retailers already there. Not to mention Lululemon being there.

We're a metro area of just over 1.4 million, with the largest mall on the continent here as well as Southgate being another big mall with a lot of high end brands. I do wish we had the kind of downtown independent retail seen in Toronto/Montreal/Vancouver, but that will likely never be. I think downtown can become a premier spot for bars/restaurants and other niche retailers once the downtown population reaches a certain threshold. And who knows, when places like the Parks and other condos come online and have residents maybe we reach a point where clothing retailers start to look to downtown to expand stores etc. But we are nowhere close to that, and improving resident safety, crime, aesthetics and getting corporations to set up shop downtown should be the bigger focus here.

 

[IanO]

The power of WEM has never been stronger + Edmonton's weather = the force is with the malls.

 

[thommyjo]

 

[Gronk!]

Is it just me, or has construction slowed to a crawl?

 

[archited]

^^^^ It's just you -- below grade construction is always slow especially with ramped parking aisles -- floors are sloped in two directions. Things will speed up when they get to grade and are working on the tower

 

[Glenco]

They are working on the floor of the third level of parking.

 

[northlands]

It’s a BIG parkade.

 

[Munanyo]

Nice progress. Any idea when they are expected to reach at grade level?