Certainly what's envisioned will be a work in progress for years to come, and based on public interest in the site, Edmontonians are keen on what the future might bring.
They were busy in February checking out visions of five finalist design teams being assessed by the city.
The public engagement process attracted 15,000 hits on the city's website for the redevelopment project, and hundreds of comments, said Phil Sande, the project's executive director.
Sande said about 1,500 Edmontonians checked out open-house displays for the project and he's not surprised at the level of interest in redevelopment of the site.
"It's clearly something that Edmontonians have been focused on for many, many years," he said. "This is their first opportunity to really see what could become on that property."
Team trumps design
The selection committee will be recommending its preferred design team to city council this spring. While the concepts the finalists have produced will certainly be used in the final product, Sande emphasized that they're not blueprints at this point, that the selection process is choosing a team, not a concept. The latter will be fleshed out in the planning period that follows.
"What we're doing within this process is we're actually choosing the best team, as opposed to choosing the best design. The designs that everybody is seeing are a part of the overall submission that each of these teams has provided in order to convey to us what their team's philosophies are, and how it is that they're proposing to go through this overall process."
Firms competing to design the city's potential urban jewel come from Vancouver, Kansas City, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Sweden.
Their concepts, communicated to the public in five-minute videos and a series of display panels at open houses and online, are colourful and imaginative. They foresee urban city living along a constructed aspen forest with manufactured hills and man-made water features, renewable energy infrastructure (giant windmills are depicted along the north edge of the site), and vibrant streets. One concept calls for five-kilometre-deep ground-source heating wells. Another foresees a looping urban waterway. Yet another lays out an aspen forest along the current footprint of the northwest-southeast runway. All foresee significant parkland in the urban mix.
High density
What they don't envision is single-family homes of the suburban variety: far from it. The proposed housing density as outlined in the airport lands master plan principles, is a minimum of 25 units per acre, roughly triple to quadruple what's often associated with urban and suburban "family" neighbourhoods.
Yet the plan principles meant to guide the design teams call for "an inclusive, family-oriented, fully sustainable community" offering "superior urban lifestyle opportunities, comprising a wide range of housing choices mixed with offices, restaurants, boutiques and services, primarily designed to serve the community's residents."
The predominant dense building form will be stacked townhouses, townhouses and four-to-six-storey low-rise apartments.
The city's also mandating that 20 per cent of the housing units will be "affordable housing," encompassing rental units and owner-occupied dwellings. That may be easier to achieve than it sounds, in part because the site is close to both Grant MacEwan University and the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT).
Transit links
While many cities talk about the potential for transit-oriented infill development, Edmonton's vision seems more than achievable in this area, with construction already started on a new light-rail transit line to link downtown to NAIT (completion in 2014) and an extension to the redeveloped airport lands to follow.
Indeed, while Edmonton has long lagged behind Calgary in building new LRT lines, its interest and pursuit of better transit has been growing recently. It opened new track to the southside in 2010 and has additional routes planned, but not yet funded, in the west, northwest and southeast sectors of the city.
Not everyone is embracing a bold new vision for the airport lands. Some want to keep the airport open.
City council certainly isn't unanimous in its vision. Take councillor Tony Caterina, who has opposed closure of the airport.
"My initial thought is they're all different, but they're all the same," Caterina told the Edmonton Journal a few days after the design team finalists revealed their concepts. "There are themes here of park space and stormwater management … that to me is not innovative."
Several of the concepts look at reserving close to half the site for green space, but Caterina isn't sure if this will leave room for the 30,000 residents expected to move in. Some of the plans also have extensive canals, which could prove costly if ever implemented.
The concepts shared with the public at this point are rich on artwork and low on costing, something that raises red flags for some Edmontonians, particularly since the city is serving as its own developer on the project. That is not unusual in urban Alberta. The City of Calgary is redeveloping the East Village neighbourhood on the east end of Calgary's core with its own developer, Calgary Municipal Land Corp.
Still, converting a flat airport site to a contoured, vibrant urban community of tomorrow won't be cheap - particularly with the requirements for green world infrastructure to service gold-standard LEED buildings in a place lit, heated and cooled by renewable energy sources.
Economic rebound
While airport site redevelopment is clearly still in the planning stages, Edmonton as a whole has been swinging back quite nicely economically since the crash of 2008.
With oil flirting with $100 a barrel, oilsands projects near Fort McMurray are pushing the demand for everything from industrial shop space to retail space in the capital city.
The region's industrial shop vacancy rate dropped to 3.58 per cent in the final quarter of 2010, down from 4.41 per cent from 12 months earlier.
Demand for retail space is up, and Colliers International notes nine redevelopment or new office tower proposals in the city's financial and government districts. As well, the city is actively considering a new downtown arena.
For its part, Cushman & Wakefield sees growth ahead for Edmonton's commercial real estate market. "In 2011, continued downward pressure is expected on retail vacancy, as there will be limited new development coming on line for most of the year. Construction costs have stabilized somewhat, giving both developers and tenants more cost certainty in their growth plans," the company noted in a recent market update. A number of new projects will join the retail universe in 2011, the study added.
On the industrial side, C&W sees a busy year ahead. "Speculative industrial development is expected to increase vacancy in the short term, with absorption increasing as the new buildings are brought on line."
And, it's fair to say, many new developments will happen long before dirt starts moving on the airport lands, likely in 2014.
from Western Investor, April 2011
