2015: Downtown Edmonton’s Catalyst Year?

Renowned architect, teacher and author Ken Greenberg stood before an audience of urban enthusiasts on Dec. 15 to say that when it comes to downtown matters, economically and strategically, Edmonton is in an “enviable position."

“What is enormously impressive about your situation is not the number of projects, but that they represent so many sectors,” said the Toronto-based planner with an international portfolio. “One couldn’t ask for a greater set of things on deck.”

He named a few of them: the arena, airport lands and west Rossdale developments — topics that would come up again and again at the day-long symposium, I ♥ yegdt: Downtown X-posed, organized by Edmonton's Downtown Vibrancy Task Force.

Greenberg spoke about what he’s learned while writing his book, Walking Home: The Life and Lessons of a City Builder, and the massive paradigm shift from the cities to suburbs, in the 1950s, and back to the cities in the new millennium. This transition is happening around the world, and "success is going to these cities that are gracefully embracing this challenge."

He said Edmonton should learn to play chords, not strings. He added, “It’s not a score like classical music, but more like jazz.” Government and developers supply the rhythm section to give entrepreneurs, community groups and citizens “the opportunity for improvisation.”

Later in the event, Grant MacEwan University’s newly appointed president, David Atkinson, took the metaphor literally, albeit unintentionally, by bringing a jazz guitarist to score his 15 minute talk about the university's future, which will have its four campuses unified at its downtown headquarters over the next years.

Next month, the university will start planning for the design of its first new building, on the face of 104th Avenue, to transfer the arts campus over in 2015.

Two-thousand-and-fifteen. That year came up a lot during the symposium.

If all goes to plan in 2015, downtown Edmonton will also have a new Royal Alberta Museum, a new arena, a new Walterdale Bridge and a new NorQuest College learning centre. (However, a NorQuest representative at the symposium did inform me that it’s unlikely it will meet the 2015 goal, which would mark the school’s 50^th birthday.)

With all these blueprints waiting for shovels, 2015 might just be the catalyst year for downtown Edmonton, when its colleges, condos, institutions and businesses reach perfect alignment.

Of course, money could slow it all down or stop any of it completely. Was the purpose of Downtown X-posed to attract funds? Not exactly — most of the listeners were people already enthused about the core and involved in some capacity, either as workers or residents or both.

What the symposium seemed to be doing was energizing people about the prospects of downtown. Because more than money, it’s momentum that needs to keep flowing.