Edmonton Construction 11 (November 2011)

[feepa]

I'd be more supportive of Don if he had a grasp on how the real world works. Sure, he has the education, but the man has never done anything except walk right in the council seat...

[s4.audios]

That condo for Calgary really seems like it will not look as nice in real life. Buildings don't "glow" as much as they do in that pic. I find some renders are quite deceiving.

[Coldrsx]

Originally Posted by feepa

I'd be more supportive of Don if he had a grasp on how the real world works. Sure, he has the education, but the man has never done anything except walk right in the council seat...

Pretty ignorant statement there.

Go have a pint with him for me will you.

[Coldrsx]

Originally Posted by s4.audios

That condo for Calgary really seems like it will not look as nice in real life. Buildings don't "glow" as much as they do in that pic. I find some renders are quite deceiving.

Duh, but with that amount of glazing it will be a nice urban lantern.

[feepa]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

Pretty ignorant statement there.

Go have a pint with him for me will you.

Define how its an ignorant statement? What exactly has he done? The man has never worked a regular job in his life.
http://www.doniveson.ca/bio/

What will a pint with him do? Prove that he's educated, but has no practical experience in the real world? I already know that.

[Black Star]

Yeah not impressed with Iveson as counselor. From my conversations with him he has always been professional and a good guy. But he does in my opinion resonate cheap and a sense of hesitation on key basic and fundamental council decisions. And no not just our new barn

[CMD UW]

Originally Posted by feepa

Define how its an ignorant statement? What exactly has he done? The man has never worked a regular job in his life.
http://www.doniveson.ca/bio/

What will a pint with him do? Prove that he's educated, but has no practical experience in the real world? I already know that.

There's a lot of people out there that have years of 'practical' experience that are basically useless. Experience doesn't necessarily mean you have credibility.

Don has demonstrated to be a very astute, active and engaging Councilor.

[EdmTrekker]

Don is now seen in business circles as leaning left - on a whole range of issues. A modern day Jan Reimer in a mans body. Same messages though. Not a big thinker or risk taker. Certainly not the visionary for a Big City. Does not have the business savy or connections to achieve much of anything....really...and has ZIP experience in anything...

[Pavlov]

Originally Posted by 240glt

^^ I hope we can do better than Nenshi.... He's turning out to be a bit of a doofus

A doofus with an 86% approval rating (~20% higher than Mandel incidentally) after serving only one year.

ETA:

A recent citizen satisfaction survey commissioned by the city showed that 83 per cent of people are satisfied with their lives in Calgary and 84 per cent are proud to be Calgarian. Most interesting, 86 per cent of people are optimistic about the future.

[hilman]

^ those stats have little to do with Nenshi, they were probably the same with Bronco.

[Pavlov]

Originally Posted by hilman

^ those stats have little to do with Nenshi, they were probably the same with Bronco.

Perhaps.

Global TV yesterday released an Ipsos-Reid poll that handed Mayor Naheed Nenshi an 86 percent approval rating from Calgarians. That's 17 percentage points higher than the national average mayoral approval rating of 69 percent. It's also 39 points higher than the 47 percent approval Dave Bronconnier received in his ninth and final year as mayor.

The online sample of 402 Calgarians also found 77 percent of them to be optimistic about the future of Calgary under the newly elected council, compared with 57 percent optimism a year ago.

While this appears to reflect poorly on Bronconnier, it's interesting to note that 84 percent of Calgarians approved of Bronco one year into his first term as mayor, also. Then, they believed the mayor and city council were on the right track (87 percent) and the same number (87 percent) approved of their overall management of Calgary.
...

SOURCE: http://calgary.openfile.ca/node/4826

I don't want to derail the Edmonton Construction thread. But if people are interested in having the discussion, I would be curious to hear criticisms of Nenshi from an outside perspective.

[hqcan]

Nenshi is the most popular mayor in the Country...and as someone who frequently travels to Calgary and has to stay there for extended periods (as many of Edmontonians in general do) It's pretty evident why. The guy is continuing to help Calgary grow to levels of economic success not seen in most other parts of North America. The city seems to be adding office/res towers by the day all while building up massive public infrastructure.

Getting back to Edmonton. Our own Mayor has (both directly through city council and indirectly through influencing the Province) done everything but throw the kitchens sink at downtown. Based on the amount of public investment when do you folks figure the breaking point will be with regards to private investment? I'd hope some companies are already thinking of setting up shop here/expanding operations. Manu2 would be a huge driver for this.

[MalcolmTucker]

^ It is very hard to move water uphill. Expanding what currently works, that is residential in downtown, is a much better strategy than trying to incent something that currently doesn't.

For offices, getting engineering companies to move back downtown would be really hard. What I would look at is two things:
what is keeping CWB in downtown?
what caused ATB to move out of downtown?

If you find out the answers, you can put in place measures to excentuate the positives, while minimizing the negatives. You would be surprised how much small changes can influence things, look at Calgary's Clean to the Core initiative.

To get new towers, more drastic measures might be needed. Not taxing the value of the extra value of an office tower vs a suburban but in Edmonton campus that employs the same amount of people for 30 years would be an interesting incentive. In back of the envelope theory, the city shouldn't be hurt too much on the tax side (if the company was going to build in the suburbs in the first place and simply was not a free rider), while benefiting on the service side by taking advantage of existing infrastructure.

Getting rid of much of the zoning restrictions that increase cost while not increasing societal benefit would be good too. If there is a requirement for parking (minimum or maximum to a point) axe it. Any requirements for pedway connections or future pedway connections gone. Requirements for plazas? Art? Left to the market.

Only restrictions I would keep or put in are having the main floor be either transparent or lined with outward (or dual) facing retail bays. You don't want to just create suburbs in the sky. Economics and the airport overlay should deal with the rest.

[ABF]

"What I would look at is two things:
what is keeping CWB in downtown?
what caused ATB to move out of downtown?"

Sorry, but when did ATB leave downtown?

[rapid_business]

/\ Yup, ATB is headed to Telus South. Perhaps Kyle meant Survus?

[Hallsy's Toupee]

ATB is not leaving downtown.

[MalcolmTucker]

I think I confused their development of several corporate campuses around the province with a retreat from downtown. My bad.

Still the logic stands just as it did in Toronto. Downtown Toronto was having trouble competing with the 905 for new bank and financial services space. They examined their competitive position, figured out their strengths and made them more visible (hidden costs of locating in the suburbs vs hidden benefits of locating downtown) to make it more than a lease rate calculation. They also began lowering business property tax.

They turned it around and now RBC is building its second new tower in the last 5 years, along with others embracing downtown living.

Anecdotlely in the media, the justification of the shift seems to be it is easier to get skilled workers downtown, because downtown is where skilled workers want to live. Whether that could apply here with traffic not nearly as bad, and a very different economic mix I am not sure.

[hqcan]

^Actually oddly enough Toronto is a fantastic example. As you mentioned they managed to stem the flow of companies heading to locations along the 401.

One complicating factor (as us folks in the Energy Industry know all to well) is the fact that Edmonton has become the definte service hub for the Oil&Gas industry. All the hardware used in both Oilfield, and Plant Fabrication is typically built in the Capital region. Those are not jobs that can be brought into the core. And the reason I keep coming back to O&G is because at the end of the day that's the industry that drives this province. As such, it's also what fills a good chunk of office space in Calgary (mostly downtown) and Edmonton (mostly in Leduc/Nisku/Ft Saskatchewan/Suburban Edmonton).

[Xelebes]

So I guess that leaves culture as our strength in the inner burbs (DT, Alberta Ave, Whyte.)

[CMD UW]

Anyone know where this could be? If the second image that flashes up on the website is the development it looks very interesting. Although I wonder if it’s just a placeholder given that there is an ‘Artist Rendering. Not Actual Building’ note in the lower right corner. Hmmm?

Elements by Carrington

http://elementsbycarrington.ca/