Edmonton Construction 13 (November 2015)

[B.ike]

some phone snaps from yesterday


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[Urban recluse]

Very nice, thanks.

Any ideas on what will happen to the MacDonald building?

[Black Star]

Your phone took this! Bravo phone...bravo.

Or is it the photographer!!

Good shot.


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[B.ike]

^ yup phone indeed. i think flickr says its taken from Sony F8332 - I'm using Sony Xperia XZ phone

I'll say its the phone

[Chopper]

Just a thought, why can't edmonton imititate something like singapore. Its clean, modern, and beautiful. Way better than most european cities. City planners only base their projects to what vancouver, toronto, or calgary do. I think Edmonton still focuses on subarban living. Why can't edmonton make downtown or the core a tourist destination since we dont have anything near that is worth visiting. The city should stop building the suburbs and make downtown 'THE DESTINATION'. It is a city far from everything, then make the core the city of the future. It is the capital of Alberta, it should look like a prime capital. Never mind Calgary or Toronto or Vancouver, It should think on an international level.

The city or the provincial government hires Edmonton/Calgary based architects and engineer yet it produces conventional products, look at RAM and legislature parks-fascist architecture. Dialog, stantec and most Alberta based architecture firms are just conventional firms, they can't even win any awards at the worlds architecture festival. Nait, sait, and uofcalgary and uofalberta should stop producing unimaginative architects and engineers.

[Coldrsx]

'I think Edmonton still focuses on subarban living.'

As does Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver... most of NA. But this is shifting, albeit slower than we want it to be.

We are making Downtown more of a destination, tourist attraction and heart of commerce, but we also have realities that we must face.

Can we improve, absolutely! Will we be a Singapore, absolutely not.

We must continue to invest in high-quality design, accelerate/incentivize infill and ensure that central Edmonton is clean, inviting, inclusive and beautiful.

[Chopper]

@Coldrsx
Edmonton can be something good or even better than its peers, I think the only problem is we cater opinions and ideas from people that aren't aware on what's happening on the international level. Public consultations here are a joke, we asks baby boomers and hipsters about their opinions, I know we should ask the taxpayers but in terms of design and trends, the city should asked people from the field that specializes that. We cater designs that are BS, look at RAM. The look of the museum is so boring that it looks like a 1980s mall with recent cheap upgrades.

We spend millions of dollars on public arts that are even not good, Public arts should be interactive and imaginative specially on parks yet the approved public arts in the elizabeth park are just lame.

[mintzilla]

^ there is nothing wrong with suburbs as a lot of people want that living (wouldn't hurt to design them a bit better though).
The real problem I have personally is opportunities like century park, clareview, fort road, blatchford seem to just get turned to 🞵🞵🞵🞵 forever ruining any opertunity for people who don't want the suburban lifestyle but don't want the downtown lifestyle as well.

Also I can't stand how underutilizes the river valley is. This city is literally in the middle of nowhere with no natural features of value other than the valley and it's basically off limits except for golfers (who's demographics skew a certain direction) oh but you can go jogging in there that's good enough right? Thanks I can jog anywhere. /rant

[Coldrsx]

Crane going up as we speak for Raymond Block on Whyte.

[Coldrsx]

Originally Posted by Chopper

@Coldrsx
Edmonton can be something good or even better than its peers, I think the only problem is we cater opinions and ideas from people that aren't aware on what's happening on the international level. Public consultations here are a joke, we asks baby boomers and hipsters about their opinions, I know we should ask the taxpayers but in terms of design and trends, the city should asked people from the field that specializes that. We cater designs that are BS, look at RAM. The look of the museum is so boring that it looks like a 1980s mall with recent cheap upgrades.

We spend millions of dollars on public arts that are even not good, Public arts should be interactive and imaginative specially on parks yet the approved public arts in the elizabeth park are just lame.

We can certainly improve and become a more attractive, interesting, vibrant city...yes. The level of urban design and creativity has vastly improved, but we have issues of consistency. The RAM is BS? Hardly.

Art, let alone public art, is in the eye of the beholder and while I dislike some of what we have, I enjoy the majority of it and would say it is not much different than what I have seen on my travels around the world.

Can we do more, yes.
Are we making strides, yes.

[thefew32]

Originally Posted by mintzilla

^ there is nothing wrong with suburbs as a lot of people want that living (wouldn't hurt to design them a bit better though).
The real problem I have personally is opportunities like century park, clareview, fort road, blatchford seem to just get turned to 🞵🞵🞵🞵 forever ruining any opertunity for people who don't want the suburban lifestyle but don't want the downtown lifestyle as well.

Also I can't stand how underutilizes the river valley is. This city is literally in the middle of nowhere with no natural features of value other than the valley and it's basically off limits except for golfers (who's demographics skew a certain direction) oh but you can go jogging in there that's good enough right? Thanks I can jog anywhere. /rant

Not only can you jog in there, it's the best place in the city in which to do so.

If you can't stand how underutilized it is, just utilize it! Activities range from bushwhacking to having a tea with your mom! Literally. Bike rides, camp fires, fishing. Chilling on the closest thing Edmonton has to a beach. Manicured parks with parking to knee deep prickly bushes that give way to awesome finds!

Don't agree at all that the valley is off limits. In fact public access has and is improving. Agree with you about golf though (huge amount of land for a few people).

[sdimedru]

Did the Stantec and JW cranes get a lift this weekend? Just noticed them from a spot I never have seen them from before.

[Airboy]

Originally Posted by thefew32

Not only can you jog in there, it's the best place in the city in which to do so.

If you can't stand how underutilized it is, just utilize it! Activities range from bushwhacking to having a tea with your mom! Literally. Bike rides, camp fires, fishing. Chilling on the closest thing Edmonton has to a beach. Manicured parks with parking to knee deep prickly bushes that give way to awesome finds!

Don't agree at all that the valley is off limits. In fact public access has and is improving. Agree with you about golf though (huge amount of land for a few people).

I agree with you , the valley is a constant discovery. Just because we don't have tree lined river board walks does not make is unusable. This city is getting recognized for the incredible urban mountain biking. I've done over 70kms of single track on one ride. And if you want paved access there is plenty of that as well. the river itself is being used more and more every year. When I first started using in in 1980 you saw very few people on the river. Now on a weekend there is constant traffic. both power and human powered. The valley trail system can take you to some great neighborhood finds if you are willing to explore. With the Yorath house redevelopment, we are adding one more destination with a possible coffee stop.

[feepa]

Dont urban my river valley!!!!!!!!!!! I'm 100% against any further development in our river valley except maybe a few sites centrally. It is Edmonton's best asset as a natural parkland. Tons of people enjoy it all the time year around. If you don't maybe you should find a way. There's certainly a lot more than just 'jogging' or 'golfing' going on down there.

[Makenosmallplans]

Originally Posted by feepa

Dont urban my river valley!!!!!!!!!!! I'm 100% against any further development in our river valley except maybe a few sites centrally. It is Edmonton's best asset as a natural parkland. Tons of people enjoy it all the time year around. If you don't maybe you should find a way. There's certainly a lot more than just 'jogging' or 'golfing' going on down there.

I understand your point but it is not "your" river valley it is "ours" and many would like to see a bit more urbanization. If you mean "centrally" as from Groat bridge to the east end of Louise McKinney Park (and perhaps some other select parts) then i agree with you. there are literally hundreds of kilometers of river valley within the city limits including both banks. i think we can spare some of them for some good, accessible urban development.

[B.ike]

I think the Louise McKinley area can be expanded upon. Rossdale should be developed. Outside of those areas, I'm not sure which locations make sense being "urbanized".

As a plug-in Id like to say that as an extension of the River Valley, the Whitemud Ravine is probably one of my favourite hiking/biking trail in Edmonton. If you're ambitious, one can get from Fox Drive all the way to Jagare Ridge with relatively small detours into neighbourhood pavement here and there. Feels like you're in the mountains at certain points on the trail.

[Mikemike]

^There should be no detours into neighbourhoods from ravines, and from the river valley only where required by cliffs.

I'm a big fan of Kinnard Ravine. There's honestly zero traffic noise once you're down, which is not the case for most of the larger ravines, especially whitemud north of Whitemud drive where it seems the noise never stops.

No problem with the golf courses, except there should be better access through the golf courses to get to the water especially off-season, and the city needs to maintain routes around them. The path along the river beside riverside golf course has been closed or at least at-your-own-risk for at least the past couple years due to erosion at a location where just moving the golf course's fence back a few meters would fix the problem.

[Airboy]

[IMG]B by Tim Taylor-Smith, on Flickr[/IMG]

Originally Posted by B.ike

I think the Louise McKinley area can be expanded upon. Rossdale should be developed. Outside of those areas, I'm not sure which locations make sense being "urbanized".

As a plug-in Id like to say that as an extension of the River Valley, the Whitemud Ravine is probably one of my favourite hiking/biking trail in Edmonton. If you're ambitious, one can get from Fox Drive all the way to Jagare Ridge with relatively small detours into neighbourhood pavement here and there. Feels like you're in the mountains at certain points on the trail.

[feepa]

Originally Posted by Makenosmallplans

I understand your point but it is not "your" river valley it is "ours" and many would like to see a bit more urbanization. If you mean "centrally" as from Groat bridge to the east end of Louise McKinney Park (and perhaps some other select parts) then i agree with you. there are literally hundreds of kilometers of river valley within the city limits including both banks. i think we can spare some of them for some good, accessible urban development.

There may be a few that want to see it urbanized, but I doubt you are in the majority.
Much of the area you indicate is already developed in some form or fashion, and really doesn't need more. I'm okay with a bit of development in rossdale, but the rest of the valley should remain as parkland.

There is not literally hundreds of km of river valley within city limits. At most its 80 km from henday south bridge to henday north bridge.

I think most urban developments would be best on top of the bank, overlooking the valley. Not in the valley.

[Hallsy's Toupee]

Nobody wants to see the river valley paved over and redeveloped, that's just fearmongering. There should be some developments that cater to the non-outdoorsy types but that should be constrained to Lower Rossdale - I've always envisioned that area plus the power plant for our own version of Coal Harbour. I would like to see an extension of Louise McKinney Park promenade extended to the upcoming new LRT bridge, and a similar promenade from the EPCOR plant to the Royal Glenora. And I would like to see a riverfront multi-use path from the Kinsman to Emily Murphy Park to match the similar path between the Walterdale and Groat Bridges.