Edmonton Construction 11 (November 2011)

[Theif]

^ Talk is cheap. When there are shovels in the ground and people moving in then things are happening, until then it's all pipe dreams. Things have been "happening" for 5 years and still no shovels in the ground !!!

[s4.audios]

There have been shovels in the ground in the past five years. I agree that clearly there is not enough happening as we wish would be. But lets not compare the city to others like Calgary; compare our own city in the 90's, even first half of the past decade. Things are definitely starting to move along when looking at our past. And it is just the start imo, I have high hopes for this next decade I hope the city doesn't let me down.

Comparing to calgary, we dont have mountains in our view / ski rsorts an hour and a half away, don't have as much white collar jobs or large companies basing their hq's as much. Edmonton will always have a tougher time attracting people and demand to the city and will always be behind Calgary. People here need to step up and make a difference, which is the major issue with the past where it hasn't happened. But I believe change is happening; I feel Edmontonians have a lot more pride these days. Then again I am young and dont know much about the past, this is all just my opinion.

[CMD UW]

^There are alot of proud Edmontonians out there, particularly the younger generation.

[Black Star]

Im a proud Edmontonian.. Edmonton continues to mature as a place to live work and play. We will continue to keep and attract all sorts of white collar technical and arts related professionals. We will not (Always) be behind Calgary!!! What a defeatist thing to say...wow. Our mountains are a morning drive away...big deal.

[kcantor]

Originally Posted by Theif

^ Talk is cheap. When there are shovels in the ground and people moving in then things are happening, until then it's all pipe dreams. Things have been "happening" for 5 years and still no shovels in the ground !!!

just because you seem to have missed them doesn't mean there hasn't been plenty of shovels in the ground in the last five years (most of which were in the middle of a rather drastic recession or did you miss that too?).

[AngryWhiteMan]

RE: "We will continue to keep and attract all sorts of white collar technical and arts related professionals."

I don't think we've been attracting white collar technical jobs in the past few years. Based on my experience in past few years, I'd say that our white collar job pool has thinned out with the higher paying and decision making positions moving away and, at best, being replaced by maintenance and support positions.

Specifically, in my area of work, which is Software Development, in the past few years, we saw Intuit move out, Bioware thin out, and Telus development positions evaporate. I know this from people affected by these events. We are talking about six figure kind of positions occupied by the kind of people that like to hang out and spend money in downtown.

[s4.audios]

What I said was not defeatist and it is not necessarily a bad thing. I dont believe Edmonton will ever be ahead of Calgary and it doesnt have to. What Edmonton and Edmontonians need to do is create/expand its own identity. And the truth is, currently, Calgary does have a stronger identity in peoples minds. And Edmonton is only getting better because people are trying to make a difference now. Alberta doesnt need two major cities where people could argue about which is better; it needs two cities where people see as completely different and people talk about the positives of both.

On an off note, not trying to make any stereotypical comments but I've heard many people say ya Calgary is so much nicer but would rathed live in Edmonton just because of the people. They say Calgary is cold in that e erybody seems to have a 'everyone for themselves' mentality. Just what ive heard, I've never lived in Calgary and I love the city when i do go down.

[s211]

Originally Posted by cdnklc

just because you seem to have missed them doesn't mean there hasn't been plenty of shovels in the ground in the last five years (most of which were in the middle of a rather drastic recession or did you miss that too?).

I hear what you're saying but are you saying that Edmonton's somehow different than other cities in that regard? They went through a recession also.

[rapid_business]

/\ But what are you comparing Edmonton to then? Activity in Calgary stopped too over the past couple years too. Some of what you are seeing now there is the phoenix rising from the ashes of dead proposals and bankrupt developers there. Toronto? We can't touch that with a 10-foot-pole. When condo development is driven by huge amounts of foreign dollars, its is apples to oranges, never mind a metro area 5 times the size.

[Spring2008]

True, every city took a big hit during the recession though I can understand people's frustration here. There hasn't even been one project to launch here within the past year(not even sales). Inner city development is moving at a snails pace again.

I can list 16 significant high rise and low rise condo/commercial developments that have started up in Calgary's Core and surrounding areas i.e. Bridgeland, kensington, Mission, lower Mount Royal within the past year; and things there are just barely starting to heat up. There are 3 more condo projects well into sales and ready to start construction in the upcoming weeks, and a lot slated to begin summer/fall.

What makes the spread even more astounding is that during the recession a bunch of Edmonton forum-ers kept talking about how Calgary big-time overbuilt blah, blah, blah. Well A class vacancy is approaching 0% in Calgary's CBD and it seems like almost every weekend a new condo project launches and people are gobbling up whatever comes to the market.

It's looking more and more like Calgary's in for another huge inner city growth spur while Edmonton's already really far behind in this cycle.

[CMD UW]

Originally Posted by AngryWhiteMan

RE: "We will continue to keep and attract all sorts of white collar technical and arts related professionals."

I don't think we've been attracting white collar technical jobs in the past few years. Based on my experience in past few years, I'd say that our white collar job pool has thinned out with the higher paying and decision making positions moving away and, at best, being replaced by maintenance and support positions.

Specifically, in my area of work, which is Software Development, in the past few years, we saw Intuit move out, Bioware thin out, and Telus development positions evaporate. I know this from people affected by these events. We are talking about six figure kind of positions occupied by the kind of people that like to hang out and spend money in downtown.

Well that may be true for the IT sector, but it's the exact opposite for engineering and other professional positions (finance, law, insurance, accounting). Over the past 2 years there have been many, many engineers that have relocated to Edmonton for good high paying positions for the company I contract to. In fact many of these companies are the ones absorbing office space in this city > Worley Parsons, Stantec, etc.

[AngryWhiteMan]

Originally Posted by CMD UW

Well that may be true for the IT sector, but it's the exact opposite for engineering and other professional positions (finance, law, insurance, accounting). Over the past 2 years there have been many, many engineers that have relocated to Edmonton for good high paying positions for the company I contract to. In fact many of these companies are the ones absorbing office space in this city > Worley Parsons, Stantec, etc.

Glad to hear that these sectors have seen growth. In your interactions with people in those sectors, is there any talk of how the Arena will result in a relocation-to or consolidation-in Edmonton of out-of-town firms? I'm just curious to see if people in decision-making positions or higher-up kind of positions have hinted at anything or what their stance is.

[rapid_business]

What is the latest on Strathern? Has anyone heard of plans to move forward with the proposed redevelopment by the current owners, or are they trying to sell their DC2 package?

[Theif]

Originally Posted by Spring2008

True, every city took a big hit during the recession though I can understand people's frustration here. There hasn't even been one project to launch here within the past year(not even sales). Inner city development is moving at a snails pace again.

I can list 16 significant high rise and low rise condo/commercial developments that have started up in Calgary's Core and surrounding areas i.e. Bridgeland, kensington, Mission, lower Mount Royal within the past year; and things there are just barely starting to heat up. There are 3 more condo projects well into sales and ready to start construction in the upcoming weeks, and a lot slated to begin summer/fall.

What makes the spread even more astounding is that during the recession a bunch of Edmonton forum-ers kept talking about how Calgary big-time overbuilt blah, blah, blah. Well A class vacancy is approaching 0% in Calgary's CBD and it seems like almost every weekend a new condo project launches and people are gobbling up whatever comes to the market.

It's looking more and more like Calgary's in for another huge inner city growth spur while Edmonton's already really far behind in this cycle.

But hey, we might tear down a vacant building or two and put in some parking and call it a success. !! After all we did build ONE new office building in the last 15 years damn we are on a role now baby !!

[CMD UW]

Theif, do you remember what downtown Edmonton was like in the 90's, heck even during the earlier part of the last decade? We've crawled out of a very, very deep hole. Our downtown population has grown over 89% over the past decade, existing buildings that sat empty or partially empty have finally been re-developed into different uses or have been leased up. We basically spent the last decade filling up what we already had, now we'll start to build on that.

[CMD UW]

Originally Posted by AngryWhiteMan

Glad to hear that these sectors have seen growth. In your interactions with people in those sectors, is there any talk of how the Arena will result in a relocation-to or consolidation-in Edmonton of out-of-town firms? I'm just curious to see if people in decision-making positions or higher-up kind of positions have hinted at anything or what their stance is.

I don't think the arena has much to do with their decision to relocate. Career opportunities and higher wages seems to be the big draw. Many really didn't know much about Edmonton before moving, but most said that the city exceeded their expectations once they've settled in.

Edit: I can tell you that the company I work for, which has multiple offices across North America and the world, understands the importance of having a strong downtown and believe the arena district is an important component to this.

[bulliver]

Detail of Telus Toll from last Sunday

[240glt]

2 pages of steaming shit.

Hopefully tomorrow someone will have something interesting and constructive to say

[bulliver]

^ Well, it is steaming, and it is a pile of shit, but I thought it was a decent photo...

[Black Star]