Why parking lots dominate the land north of Rogers Place

CBC

20-05-2025

The land north of Rogers Place in downtown Edmonton has seen a lot of scrapped proposals over the years, from luxury towers, to shiny new hotels, to a sprawling arts district.
Those in the area say it's a microcosm of some of the barriers to development and neighbourhood revitalization that can be seen across Edmonton: growing homelessness, high commercial vacancies and empty parking lots.
And while some developers have walked away from their ambitions, others remain hopeful that what's now a sea of asphalt and chain link fence could one day be a vibrant area to live and play.
CBC News spoke with several developers and land owners in the area to hear about those hopes and challenges.
Miles Quon said he's spent his whole life looking across the street at vacant parking lots, waiting for something to happen. Quon is a manager at The Lingnan, Edmonton's oldest family-run Chinese restaurant.
In those 40 years, there's been a lot of flyers in the mail with different proposals.
"Honestly, we've learned not to hold our breath," Quon said.
Quon described the area as "the backside" of Rogers Place.
"Our side is still kind of like the wild west, which is weird because we're right downtown. People ask me all the time: 'where are you?' I'm like, I could throw a rock at Rogers Place."
Snowball effect?
A few blocks away, Qualico built the Epcor Tower on the Station Lands — once part of the Canadian National rail yard, in 2011. Nearly 15 years later, it's putting the finishing touches on a residential tower called The Switch.
That helped spur change for Vivian Pak, the owner of several lots across 101st Street.
In the last few months the strip underwent cosmetic work, major interior renovations, and installed a security fence — that helped open One01 Bistro and the Japanese Village on the corner along 105th Avenue.
"Once the Ice Village and Qualico complete their development, the area will be vibrant with urban living and commercial retail businesses," Pak said in an email.
Puneeta McBryan, CEO of the Downtown Business Association, said it's an example of the kind of snowball effect that can happen when projects finally get off the ground.
But 104th Street itself remains a challenge.
"Unfortunately, 104th Street itself, just by nature of it being such a wide commuter type of road, is sort of this natural barrier."
The economic conditions, higher construction costs and property taxes, mean developers feel more uncertain about the viability of residential housing starts — and that goes for everywhere in the city, McBryan said.
The only reason many developments are happening is they're seeing external support with government grants, she said.
Meanwhile construction workers are putting the final exterior panels on The SunRise apartment building renovation on 106th Avenue and 101st Street.
The SunRise did not receive government funding, but was the first building in western Canada to be financed with a BMO loan program intended to spur energy retrofit and sustainability upgrade projects.
It hopes to capitalize on a growing downtown student population and draw in young renters with amenity spaces and convenience, said Ignacio De Lorenzo, one of the architects involved in the project.
But he acknowledged the project isn't without risk for the developer Avenue Living.
"There's many other locations downtown where you will have more opportunities to have a better return than in a site like this," De Lorenzo said.
The building will have an integrated solar wall on one side, and a public art on the other.
"They wanted to be kind of the first in this area to do something to give back to the community."
Fires, smashed windows, graffiti deter one developer
But not every developer is wanting to take that gamble.
Jay Robinson, the president of of Quinco Financial, said his company scrapped plans for a hotel across the street from The SunRise because of the number of homeless people has grown in the area.
"We really just felt investing $33 million into that area into a hotel could be a disaster for our company," Robinson said.
Quinco owns a number of lots along 101st Street. Much of the land remains parking, and the buildings with tenants give Robinson weekly calls about graffiti, smashed windows or fires, he said.
Robinson said one of those tenants is a daycare with only 16 children, despite being licensed for triple that amount.
He said some of the buildings have people living on the roof, or have been broken into and had fires set inside.
"I don't know what the solution is. But whatever they're doing right now, it is definitely not working. So we as a company have zero plans to do anything in that area."
McBryan said any conversation about developing the area needs to factor in the high concentration of homeless services.
But she pointed to the fact that city council is working toward decentralizing social services to be more spread out across the city — which is an "uphill battle" of its own.
The village
Many like Quon at the Lingnan are waiting for the area's biggest proposal: The Village at Ice District.
Proposed to span nearly three city blocks, the mixed medium density development would add public green space, 2,500 units of housing, and retail space.
Tim Shipton, OEG's executive vice-president of external affairs, says the village will tap into a demand for student housing, seniors housing, and affordable housing for newcomers.
A recently signed memorandum of understanding between the city, the province and OEG sets aside more than $68 million for the public infrastructure and site servicing — only $3 million of which is coming from OEG.
Shipton said that public funding for the project will help accelerate the project — amidst tough market conditions.
And while some have expressed concern about public dollars going to private projects, Shipton says the Ice District has been a good deal for the city.
"OEG has been a partner that has kept its end of the bargain …we brought [Rogers Place] in on time, on budget," he said.
"Over the last decade we have in fact invested $2.5 billion in private investment which has really driven significant economic impact not only within the district but across Edmonton."
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That doesn't mean there haven't been challenges. Last year, when they were originally planning to break ground on the village, OEG instead got an extension to continue operating some of the land as surface parking lots until the end of 2028.
"I don't want to be naive or overly optimistic that there's still our challenges with supply chains, with financing, with overall market conditions," Shipton said.
But if the MOU agreements get signed, he's optimistic that it will build some momentum alongside the new event park — and will allow them to develop the old McDonald Loft site to create some excitement in the market.
Shipton said it's such a big vision that he wonders if sometimes people don't grasp the amount of change that's happened.
"But make no mistake, if you go back and look at pictures of downtown Edmonton in 2013, the city is almost unrecognizable in this area for how much development has happened. And it's really exciting."