Field School: Day 1: Downtown

Our walking tour of downtown Edmonton was the highlight of today's excursion. As a self-professed lover of historic buildings, I was excited to learn the background to some of downtowns more historic sites.  I have gotten a chance too explore Edmonton's inner core pretty well since I moved to the city but lacked much of the background into specific buildings or developments. Googling old pictures of  Edmonton's downtown can educate me only so much.

Here are some of the most interesting things I learned and considered during today's trip:

The backside of the Westin Hotel

 

• Blank walls: I never considered just how many ugly blank walls there were downtown. I briefly remember this issue of blank walls being part of CPTED. I though it was interesting to see the attempts that some businesses have made to minimize this and the effect it has on the surrounding landscape. I think that I will run with this idea of blank walls/dead space for my final project. 

 

• Our guide said that downtown will face challenges in ever revitalizing to the degree areas like 124th and 118th street have because of the lack of conducive buildings. He said that downtown lacks the "bones" because it does not have small units to accommodate a higher density  of infill and most importantly, it lacks the ground level, store front appeal needed to draw people in. Right now the majority of the buildings, with exception to 104th street, cater only to professional services. What we should see is the conversion of ground floor units (and up to four floors) into retail, restaurant, and cafes and keep office space above all of that. So far it seems like a bust.

 

• Trains: The discussion surrounding the rail line and trains as a resurrected mode of transportation downtown was unexpected and thought provoking. 


• There was an underlying emphasis for future mix-use development in the city core. This argument makes sense and I think we are slowly starting to see new developers adopt this concept (as in the case of 104th street). I personally think mix-use development is a great idea and adds to the density and diversity that our downtown lacks.