Edmonton Construction 13 (November 2015)

[noodlenoodle]

That's the surface lots behind the apartment building/strip mall complex housing OTR, Famoso & Shoppers.

Do it up! Great spot, smack dab between two existing buildings of roughly the same size & a great infill addition to West Oliver.

[s211]

Originally Posted by Daveography

Proposed rezoning in Oliver for an apartment building

The proposed rezoning would allow for the opportunity to develop the current parking lot into a 45 metre (approximately 15 storeys) tall high-density apartment building with surface parking located at the rear of the building and an underground parkade.

C'mon guys, step up to the 21st century and drop the surface parking. Edmonton really needs to step up its alley treatments. Some of the condos developed here in the last 10-20 years have really upped their game in that regard, with landscaping and porte-cocheres.

[Daveography]

^ Attend the meeting, provide your feedback.

[Hallsy's Toupee]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

Global wants to do a story

Here it is!

http://globalnews.ca/news/2585306/downto...arking-lot-will-open-floodgates-to-more/

Downtown residents fear new surface parking lot will open floodgates to more

It’s a rather innocuous development in downtown Edmonton, but a new surface parking lot at 99 Avenue and 104 Street has some city centre residents concerned about a precedent it may set.

Where a three-storey apartment building was recently demolished, a small parking lot now sits- allowing residents of a neighbouring apartment building to park their vehicles.

It’s not the only surface parking lot in the area, in fact there are several close by.

Initially, the application for the new lot was rejected by the city.

“It’s just further encroachment and destruction of our urban fabric,” Chris Buyze of the Downtown Edmonton Community League says. “Especially in such a high-density area.”

But an appeal saw the parking space get approval by the Subdivision and Development Appeal Board.

[kcantor]

Originally Posted by 240glt

I agree Ken, I'm sure we'll find we agree more than disagree on most things.. As usual an Internet message board is not the best venue for these types of conversations

Name the time & place, I'll be there!

check your messages...

[Shodan]

Edmonton kicks off debate on cost of urban sprawl, now pegged at $1.4 billion over 50 years

Elise Stolte
Published on: March 17, 2016 | Last Updated: March 17, 2016 9:05 PM MDT

City council is setting itself up to take a hard look at the costs of suburban Edmonton growth, kicking off the debate with a report that puts a $1.4-billion price tag on the provincial capital’s last three growth areas.

Developers will foot the initial costs, putting in $3.8 billion to the series of neighbourhoods. But over the next 50 years, Edmonton will be expected to spend $519 million to upgrade roads and $105 million on waste pickup and facilities. The city will also be asked to build 396 parks at a cost of $95 million, five fire stations for $65 million, two libraries at $36 million, three recreation centres at $347 million, and $47 million in police facilities and equipment.

New neighbourhoods will generate revenue through residential taxes and spinoffs of construction. But few Edmonton neighbourhoods are built at a high enough density for residential taxes to cover their associated costs...

http://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-ne...-now-pegged-at-1-4-billion-over-50-years

[kcantor]

^
I think the first thing we can do here is add some perspective... 1.4 billion dollars sounds like a lot of money. But that's over a period of 50 years. Annually that's about 28 million a year from a 3 billion dollar a year budget. Furthermore, on a percentage wise basis, the city will be subsidizing a shortfall in revenues over expenditures that is less than the shortfall in revenues over expenditures from the existing residential tax base. That larger shortfall is covered by commercial taxes so on that basis the new neighborhoods are projected to be subsidized less than existing ones. These things aren't as cut and dried as they are sometimes made out to be and presenting things without context or comparison doesn't help in understanding complex issues.

[Shodan]

Saving Edmonton's 'ghost signs'
The historic billboards are quickly disappearing from city streets

By Wallis Snowdon, CBC News Posted: Mar 17, 2016 1:14 PM MT Last Updated: Mar 17, 2016 1:24 PM MT


New development in the Quarters has put this "Sweet Caporal" cigarette ad at risk of demolition. (spacing.ca)

"Ghost signs"' — faded, hand-painted billboards for long-forgotten businesses — will continue to haunt the corners of Edmonton's oldest buildings, if David Johnston has his way.

The City of Edmonton heritage planner wants to preserve historic advertisements from the turn of the century.

The billboards that once advertised anything from cigars, steam-cooked rice to sportswear can be found on decaying brick buildings and neglected back alleys, but the few that remain are at risk of being demolished to make way for new development...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/saving-edmonton-s-ghost-signs-1.3496045

[240glt]

I see in the news this morning that they're planning a $500 million expansion of their trade show & convention centre on the Stampede grounds in Calgary to effectively double the floorspace. While we seem to struggle so much to find a way to make ours profitable and relevant

Given all that's gone on here I thought that was interesting

[noodlenoodle]

Originally Posted by s211

C'mon guys, step up to the 21st century and drop the surface parking. Edmonton really needs to step up its alley treatments. Some of the condos developed here in the last 10-20 years have really upped their game in that regard, with landscaping and porte-cocheres.

I wouldn't want visitor parking in the parkade, nor would I want a building without visitor parking at all, given the relative density & lack of on-street parking available around the building.

Given that this building abuts a lane & would be taking up 2 existing lots of 100% surface parking, a little visitor parking at the back wouldn't be amiss or any sort of travesty.

Here's a building a block away, same height, same mix of surface & underground parking, same lane abutment & not regressive or backwards at all



Fair disclosure: it's where I live.

[Daveography]

New community bike routes proposed
The City of Edmonton is hosting an open house to share proposed new bike route locations for 40 Avenue between 106 Street and 119 Street.

Date:
Saturday, March 19, 2016

Time:
1 p.m. - 4 p.m. (presentations at 1:30 and 3 p.m.)

Location:
Royal Gardens Community Hall (4030 - 117 Street)

City staff will present cycle track and shared-use path options for 40 Avenue and 43rd Avenue, connecting communities and cyclists to the wider bike network. These proposed bike route locations are an alternative to the on-street bike lanes along 40 Avenue which were removed in August 2015.

The proposed bike route locations are based on feedback the City received from local residents. The City consulted with residents to get their input on how to balance community needs with the installation of bike routes in the area.

City staff will be on hand to answer questions and gather residents' thoughts on the location options being presented.

For more information:
edmonton.ca/engaging40Ave

Media contact:
Catherine Kloczkowski
Communications Advisor
780-495-9904

Source: http://www.mailoutinteractive.com/Industry/View.aspx?id=779649&q=1004860816&qz=511d49

[Hallsy's Toupee]

http://www.metronews.ca/news/edmonton/2016/03/17/edmonton-sprawl-will-cost-billion-more-.html

Edmonton sprawl will cost $1.4 billion more than it will bring in
City study finds three new neighbourhoods will one day hold 200,000 people, but will cost taxpayers

The city’s newest neighbourhoods won’t come close to paying for themselves and will leave taxpayers in other parts of the city on the hook for a $1.4-billion tab.
In a report going to council next week, city staff analyzed the cost of three new neighbourhoods — Decoteau and Riverview in the south and Horse Hills in the northeast — over the next 50 years, which they estimate will ultimately house 200,000 people.
The conclusion showed that, even with developers spending $3.8 billion to build the areas, the city will have a $10.6-billion bill, spent on new infrastructure and for its maintenance and renewal.
That bill includes everything from work on commuter roads that will face added strain to bringing in three recreation centres, five fire stations, two libraries and 396 hectares of park spaces.
At the same time the city will collect just $9.2 billion in revenue, through things like taxes and levies — leaving a major shortfall.
Edmonton's chief planner, Peter Ohm, said the city’s analysis showed what they have long suspected.
He said they will now launch a discussion on how to address the problem.
“Administration has been consistent in acknowledging that these shortfalls are concerning and need to be managed,” Ohm said. “The residential nature of these neighbourhoods doesn’t generate enough tax revenue.”
The planning department is recommending the city study a number of options, including moving away from property taxes, charging developers higher levies, potentially building less expensive infrastructure and looking at changing how the city grows.
Coun. Andrew Knack said the report is helpful and it’s time the city had a serious conversation.
“We’ve always suggested there has been quite a lot of cost to building new neighbourhoods, this put a dollar amount to it.”
Kurt Borth, a PhD candidate at the University of Alberta who studies sprawl, said the city really needs to understand the alternatives.
“The real thing would be seeing what it would cost to keep a similar amount of people in a mature neighbourhood," Borth said.
But he commended the city for gathering the data, so it can understand the problem.
“Without the data there is not much you can say or do.”

[kcantor]

^^
Edmonton is more than a century old. Its periods of growth and periods of stagnation often took place in spite of the short term efforts of councils and administrations to alternatively encourage or channel or restrain that demand depending on the flavour of the day (they want it when there is none, they want to control and restrain it when there is). Healthy cities will attract healthy growth. Cities that provide inner city schools and parks and transit and employment and walkable streets and retail and entertainment opportunities will have cores and inner city spaces in high demand. Cities that don't look after those things will see demand move further and further out and trying to restrain that will only move it further out, not move it back to cores that are undesirable. As developers, we don't make the markets - we only work in them and respond to them. Unfortunately, cities don't make their markets either, particularly in the short term, although they have some additional ability to affect them (but no more than that) in the long term that developers do not. But that - per the above - is by providing things like downtown arenas and parks etc. that support a market, not by stopping things from taking place elsewhere. As an illustration of that, it wouldn't have mattered a tinkers damn what new tools might have been available in an amended MGA in 1983, there was no market within which to exercise them in. Macewan and Norquest and the U of A expanding downtown will create a demand for rental accommodation that isn't going to go to Riverview. For someone that works at the airport or in Leduc/Nisku, a condo downtown is never going to be as attractive or as efficient from a planning perspective as a home in Riverview. Which brings us back a too often ignored point - our city is a single entity and treating it like a collection of discrete areas or wards or neighborhoods or streets or even uses does a disservice to all of them individually and collectively.

[Makenosmallplans]

Well said. We forget sometimes that building a city is more about riding the waves and the wind than it is about creating or controlling the ocean. I like your list - transit, parks, public spaces/walkable streets and employment. focus on those and the city will grow as it will but it will grow.

[240glt]

And totally off topic, Insured & reg'd the Volvo today, spent the evening in the garage doing a full service.. On the road tomorrow

I know it's early but what the heck. Time to kick start spring

[Black Star]

After three years of sitting empty, calls grow to demolish old Edmonton remand centre.

BILL MAH
Published on: March 18, 2016 | Last Updated: March 18, 2016 10:00 PM MDT



With the prospects of finding new life for a building with a dark history and specialized construction no clearer than when it closed in April 2013, calls are growing to demolish the old jail.

“We’ve taken a look at it for a couple of different things, and it is a very difficult building to repurpose, just because of the way it was built,” Mayor Don Iveson said Friday.

“Generally, I don’t like replacing buildings if they have useful life left in them, and structurally it’s got lots of life, but it’s really hard to imagine a good use for that building that doesn’t come with a ton of cost to repurpose and a lot of issues of trauma for people who’ve been in that building previously.”

Three years after prisoners moved to a high-tech replacement facility in suburban northwest Edmonton, the province still does not know what to do with the old centre.

http://edmontonjournal.com/business/loca...w-to-demolish-old-edmonton-remand-centre

[240glt]

Sadly due to the massive cost of whatever option is executed and neither the province nor the city wanting anything to do with it, I don't see the status quo changing anytime soon

[Black Star]

The Alberta Govt should be proactive and demolish it. Its their responsibility. Iveson should put some pressure on them to do so. Not another building DT rotting with no future.

[Coldrsx]

Originally Posted by CMD UW

Unless you go heavy on your mechanical system, which costs $$$.

Yup. We did some calcs and came to about 40% glazing for typical residential buildings, which is actually somewhat appropriate given our climate, but won't get us to where we want aesthetically.

[kcantor]

Originally Posted by Black Star

The Alberta Govt should be proactive and demolish it. Its their responsibility. Iveson should put some pressure on them to do so. Not another building DT rotting with no future.

ah yes - let's spend 8 - 10 million dollars to create a vacant piece of dirt worth a million bucks. why bother making it a suitable home for centre high which can use the gym and the cafeteria and attached student housing? and why bother making it a place for student housing or artist live/work spaces with two story vaulted spaces that would work for sculptors working on large pieces of dancers who need practice space with height? why bother integrating that with resident/teaching space for those aging performing artists that the tommy banks performing artists fund at the edmonton community foundation is trying to support? why bother considering whether some of these could be integrated with a pilgrim's hospice so those at the end of their lives are still integrated with ours and vice versa? why not include a living lab/studio for a school of architecture? why do any of that - or a dozen other creative and useful things with it - when we could be proactive and tear it down instead? maybe we can bulldoze the old ram while we're at it and get a discount on applying the same logic at the same time there as well?