[thommyjo]

I don't think it's fair to point a finger at WEM for any negative effects on downtown. Downtown has its own issues which are predominantly unrelated to any competitive effect from WEM, such as homelessness/drug use/aggressive panhandling, parking rules and enforcement, the ongoing lack of rapid transit access from key areas of the city, a public perception of lack of safety on the LRT routes that DO run to and from downtown, and an unwillingness or inability by landlords to adjust rents in order to attract and retain unique businesses.

You could blame WEM if key tenants were leaving downtown and relocating to WEM or consolidating in their existing locations there. They aren't. Holt Renfrew didn't move to WEM, it left Edmonton entirely. Hudson's Bay exited ECC and consolidated its central Edmonton operations at Kingsway. Sport Chek announced that it was leaving ECC not because of the competitive effects from its store in WEM but rather because it considers downtown an unsafe and unattractive environment which is deterring customers.

This is a bad take imho. How can you be sure that the dozens of stores in WEM that are usually located along main streets in downtowns, wouldn’t be in downtown Edmonton if WEM didn’t exist? The tourism draw, free parking, private property/security, and indoor/heated reality of WEM makes it very tough to compete with. But is it good city building? Arguably some of the safety issues downtown can be seen as a result of decreased population and retail offerings in the core because of our suburban malls and sprawl.

 

[Stevey_G]

This is a bad take imho. How can you be sure that the dozens of stores in WEM that are usually located along main streets in downtowns, wouldn’t be in downtown Edmonton if WEM didn’t exist? The tourism draw, free parking, private property/security, and indoor/heated reality of WEM makes it very tough to compete with. But is it good city building? Arguably some of the safety issues downtown can be seen as a result of decreased population and retail offerings in the core because of our suburban malls and sprawl.

Impacts of Satellite Malls on Cities

 

[dunno]

This is a bad take imho. How can you be sure that the dozens of stores in WEM that are usually located along main streets in downtowns, wouldn’t be in downtown Edmonton if WEM didn’t exist? The tourism draw, free parking, private property/security, and indoor/heated reality of WEM makes it very tough to compete with. But is it good city building? Arguably some of the safety issues downtown can be seen as a result of decreased population and retail offerings in the core because of our suburban malls and sprawl.

Impacts of Satellite Malls on Cities

I don't think it's that simple.

There's no denying WEM had an impact on Downtown retail/entertainment. So did Kingsway, the LRT construction in the '80s, and later big box stores and online retail. What happened with WEM is what happened with a lot of major cities -- the regional shopping hub moved from city to suburb -- and while other cities have clawed back at malls in recent decades, in Edmonton, WEM is still the biggest retail experience and of course the greatest draw. We see this today with most new international retailers to Edmonton setting up shop in WEM first and occasionally Windermere, Southgate, and South Common. Even when they expand, they usually don't come Downtown. If they want an urban format store, they tend to go with Whyte, though even it pales in destination (chain) retail compared to Calgary's 17th, let alone Robson, Granville, or West 4th in Vancouver.

But not every retailer only has one or two stores in a major centre. Many are well-entrenched, especially national brands, like the Bay or Sport Chek. I don't think these retailers (or Holt Renfrew) left City Centre because of WEM. They departed well after the mall had established retail dominance for the metro area and have plenty of locations throughout Edmonton and were viable in the core for decades. This isn't the 1930s when Edmonton could only support 1 Bay store. So in some cases, the blame can be put squarely on the state of Downtown Edmonton, rather than the oft-repeated claim that malls are cannibalizing inner city retail options. Like, sure, maybe it's why LL Bean or Yves Saint Laurent aren't Downtown, but the Bay and Sport Chek?

A good case study for Downtown Edmonton retail might actually be Detroit. Despite the stereotype, it's done a remarkable job at revitalizing the Downtown and a few key central neighbourhoods, and has better retail options than ours. Which, maybe you'd expect, as its the core of a 4 million+ metro, but it wasn't like this until fairly recently. Gucci, Nike, Warby Parker, Lululemon, Bonobos, H&M, alongside more local options are all in/around Woodward Ave in Downtown Detroit. This is what they're doing on the site of an old downtown department store. If they can turn it around, so can we.

 

[IanO]

Retail rarely leads, but rather follows money/people.

WEM has does an excellent job (much to my dismay) at reinventing itself, creating a critical mass of certain types of retailers, addressed some of its negative externalities and is climate controlled.

Unlike (old) Calgary Downtown and with the former exception of Manulife, there simply was not enough going for certain retail in the Downtown to support it. It faced decision makers in Toronto or Vancouver that didn't understand or believe in Downtown Edmonton and assumed that Kingsway 'was Downtown'. Retailers like Holt didn't respond to their clientele, so much so that most folks I knew drove to Calgary to shop at their Holt or saved those significant dollars for a trip to Vancouver's Holt. Birks was a bit of an odd one for it seemed to do ok, but then we witnessed a retraction of locations/space for many.

Manulife had enough a to be a weekend shopping draw and lifestyle trip, but as it eroded its options, the tide turned overnight it seemed.

 

[Stevey_G]

Retail rarely leads, but rather follows money/people.

WEM has does an excellent job (much to my dismay) at reinventing itself, creating a critical mass of certain types of retailers, addressed some of its negative externalities and is climate controlled.

Unlike (old) Calgary Downtown and with the former exception of Manulife, there simply was not enough going for certain retail in the Downtown to support it. It faced decision makers in Toronto or Vancouver that didn't understand or believe in Downtown Edmonton and assumed that Kingsway 'was Downtown'. Retailers like Holt didn't respond to their clientele, so much so that most folks I knew drove to Calgary to shop at their Holt or saved those significant dollars for a trip to Vancouver's Holt. Birks was a bit of an odd one for it seemed to do ok, but then we witnessed a retraction of locations/space for many.

Manulife had enough a to be a weekend shopping draw and lifestyle trip, but as it eroded its options, the tide turned overnight it seemed.

Epark to get more pricey Downtown

Part of the problem is that Council doesn't really understand what Downtown is and act accordingly. The link for example, everywhere they have added epark systems happen to be in improvement areas. The word "improvement" being a key word. The city should be doing everything in it's power to make downtown more accessible and to get more active foot traffic into the area because downtown businesses have to compete with extremely convenient and climate controlled competitors whilst living in a winter climate with hot summers. They need every advantage they can get, but city council just keeps making things more difficult and confusing for an automobile-centric population with a lack of competent transit options.

Like you said, the money follows the people, so why are we pushing them away.

 

[thommyjo]

I don't think it's that simple.

There's no denying WEM had an impact on Downtown retail/entertainment. So did Kingsway, the LRT construction in the '80s, and later big box stores and online retail. What happened with WEM is what happened with a lot of major cities -- the regional shopping hub moved from city to suburb -- and while other cities have clawed back at malls in recent decades, in Edmonton, WEM is still the biggest retail experience and of course the greatest draw. We see this today with most new international retailers to Edmonton setting up shop in WEM first and occasionally Windermere, Southgate, and South Common. Even when they expand, they usually don't come Downtown. If they want an urban format store, they tend to go with Whyte, though even it pales in destination (chain) retail compared to Calgary's 17th, let alone Robson, Granville, or West 4th in Vancouver.

But not every retailer only has one or two stores in a major centre. Many are well-entrenched, especially national brands, like the Bay or Sport Chek. I don't think these retailers (or Holt Renfrew) left City Centre because of WEM. They departed well after the mall had established retail dominance for the metro area and have plenty of locations throughout Edmonton and were viable in the core for decades. This isn't the 1930s when Edmonton could only support 1 Bay store. So in some cases, the blame can be put squarely on the state of Downtown Edmonton, rather than the oft-repeated claim that malls are cannibalizing inner city retail options. Like, sure, maybe it's why LL Bean or Yves Saint Laurent aren't Downtown, but the Bay and Sport Chek?

A good case study for Downtown Edmonton retail might actually be Detroit. Despite the stereotype, it's done a remarkable job at revitalizing the Downtown and a few key central neighbourhoods, and has better retail options than ours. Which, maybe you'd expect, as its the core of a 4 million+ metro, but it wasn't like this until fairly recently. Gucci, Nike, Warby Parker, Lululemon, Bonobos, H&M, alongside more local options are all in/around Woodward Ave in Downtown Detroit. This is what they're doing on the site of an old downtown department store. If they can turn it around, so can we.

Blaming the current state of downtown seems weird though. The population, tourism, and retail draw away from downtown started many decades ago and has only snowballed more. Of course there are many reasons involved in all of this. But it’s hard to not see the links between our transportation systems, sprawl, malls, and retail. Deeply entrenched patterns are caused by things like WEM. If you work at Wem, like tens of thousands of people do every day, you use crappy suburban transit or drive. If more of those jobs were central, it’d lead to better transit and less car ownership I’d argue. Most of my friends in Van/Tor didn’t get cars till 25-30 years old. All my friends in Edmonton got them at 16/17 so they could drive to retail/food service jobs and high schools that provide too much free parking. Once you own a car at 17, the chances of living car free in the future is pretty low. Once you use a car for everything, getting downtown is a pain vs a local strip mall with a BPs or earls. Or as we are increasingly seeing, diverse and local shops too.

 

[archited]

Most of my friends in Van/Tor didn’t get cars till 25-30 years old.

Is that when they also moved out of their parents' basement?

 

[dunno]

Blaming the current state of downtown seems weird though. The population, tourism, and retail draw away from downtown started many decades ago and has only snowballed more. Of course there are many reasons involved in all of this. But it’s hard to not see the links between our transportation systems, sprawl, malls, and retail. Deeply entrenched patterns are caused by things like WEM. If you work at Wem, like tens of thousands of people do every day, you use crappy suburban transit or drive. If more of those jobs were central, it’d lead to better transit and less car ownership I’d argue. Most of my friends in Van/Tor didn’t get cars till 25-30 years old. All my friends in Edmonton got them at 16/17 so they could drive to retail/food service jobs and high schools that provide too much free parking. Once you own a car at 17, the chances of living car free in the future is pretty low. Once you use a car for everything, getting downtown is a pain vs a local strip mall with a BPs or earls. Or as we are increasingly seeing, diverse and local shops too.

Obviously things aren't cut and dry. That's my whole point. Places like WEM have had a considerable impact on Downtown Edmonton, and it, along with other suburban retail nodes, have eaten away at its previous retail supremacy. The Bay and Sport Chek would likely still be at City Centre if not for the sorry state of the core over the past 5 years in conjunction with these retailers phoning it in on their downtown retail offerings. I'd argue that Kingsway had more of an effect in recent years than WEM because of the owner of Kingsway and City Centre being the same. H&M was going to go downtown so Oxford offered an expanded Kingsway space. And for that destination retail, because of how successful Kingsway remains, it's simply too close for most to consider downtown locations. If Kingsway was where Northgate or Londonderry are (and better located as a retail hub for Northside residents) then it might be different.

Also, WEM has ok transit access, I'd say. If you compare it to 99% of American destination malls, it's pretty great. If you compare it to major Canadian malls (like Chinook, Coquitlam Centre, Polo Park, Yorkdale, Lime Ridge, Conestoga, Carrefour Laval, Ste-Foy, etc), WEM is either as good or marginally worse. If you compare it to other major malls in Edmonton, it does pretty good. Its LRT isn't going to be the mess that Southgate and Kingsway-RAH stations are. The mall has been far more willing to work with transit than other properties in the city. As it stands, it has a lot of bus connectivity, too - more than probably any other mall in the city aside from the downtown ones.

As for the driving thing. I'm Millennial and a lot of my friends didn't get their license at 16-17. Most got it later, actually, in their early-mid 20s, but I think it's incorrect to assume that every Edmonton teen is getting their license straight away. If that were the case, our high school parking lots would be as giant as American ones. ETS gives a lot to be desired and could be significantly better but, in the North American context, for such a young city, Edmonton isn't really that bad. Ottawa and Calgary do some things a bit better, but some things worse. Any American metro in the 1-2 million range is going to have a more mediocre transit experience than here. Even bigger, more iconic places have quirks that make ETS seem alright. The BART has worse frequencies than our LRT, Portland's MAX has slightly less ridership despite 2x the population and 4x the track, LA has major universities like CalTech completely disconnected from rapid transit... and that's just the West Coast.

 

[Stevey_G]

To sum up Downtown's Decay quickly

-Reimagining of Whyte Ave
-Closure of hospitals
-Leaving of oil companies for Calgary
-WEM development

Downtown does have a future though I feel. The park, a couple thousand more units in the warehouse district, and more retail bay space will make it more attractive. Definitely is a slow and steady thing though.

 

[dunno]

To sum up Downtown's Decay quickly

-Reimagining of Whyte Ave
-Closure of hospitals
-Leaving of oil companies for Calgary
-WEM development

Downtown does have a future though I feel. The park, a couple thousand more units in the warehouse district, and more retail bay space will make it more attractive. Definitely is a slow and steady thing though.

You forgot LRT construction, general mall development in the '60s and '70s... Downtown was already on the wane before WEM's first phase was built due to Kingsway et al

It's also worth noting that until recently, Downtown and Strathcona were after different kinds of retail in general. The Bay, Sport Chek, Holt Renfrew weren't going to wind up on Whyte Ave, but Lulu, Chapters, and American Apparel did.

 

[Stevey_G]

You forgot LRT construction, general mall development in the '60s and '70s... Downtown was already on the wane before WEM's first phase was built due to Kingsway et al

It's also worth noting that until recently, Downtown and Strathcona were after different kinds of retail in general. The Bay, Sport Chek, Holt Renfrew weren't going to wind up on Whyte Ave, but Lulu, Chapters, and American Apparel did.

In regards to Strathcona I agree, I believe that reimagining Whyte Ave primarily served to suck much of the nightlife away from the core though.

All my bullets impacted the core in different ways. It was kind of a perfect storm looking back to be honest.

 

[Edmcowboy11]

^Although the core has been slowly bringing night life back.

 

[ChazYEG]

Nike is opening a MASSIVE store at the mall. Takes up all of the space from the entrance where the old Forever21 was to the escalators by the Ice Palace

 

[TravellingChris]

You forgot LRT construction, general mall development in the '60s and '70s... Downtown was already on the wane before WEM's first phase was built due to Kingsway et al

It's also worth noting that until recently, Downtown and Strathcona were after different kinds of retail in general. The Bay, Sport Chek, Holt Renfrew weren't going to wind up on Whyte Ave, but Lulu, Chapters, and American Apparel did.

You could argue that major retail's fate was sealed in the downtown when The Bay opened a store at Kingsway in 1988. Remember after that The Bay shrank its store on Jasper Avenue dramatically. Then once HBC took over Woodward's, The Bay eventually moved its downtown store to Edmonton Centre (as it was then), which hurt Jasper Avenue and the surrounding businesses. And The Bay didn't even take over all of Woodward's but only operated about 60% of the anchor space in Edmonton Centre.

Between The Bay leaving Jasper Avenue and Eaton's closing (robbing downtown of yet another anchor that wasn't replaced) this sucked a lot of life out of the area.

 

[TravellingChris]

You forgot LRT construction, general mall development in the '60s and '70s... Downtown was already on the wane before WEM's first phase was built due to Kingsway et al

It's also worth noting that until recently, Downtown and Strathcona were after different kinds of retail in general. The Bay, Sport Chek, Holt Renfrew weren't going to wind up on Whyte Ave, but Lulu, Chapters, and American Apparel did.

Like a lot of people I opposed Chapters going in on Whyte. Its presence helped kill Greenwood's...and Chapters ended up closing its Old Strathcona store anyway.