Tag Archives: development

Urban/Suburban Marketing in Edmonton: The suburbs are winning

By ·

Can you really have a “downtown vibe” in the suburbs? That’s what an article published in the Edmonton Journal back in February would have you believe. It focused on The ION in Ambleside and championed the seductive notion that you can have downtown-style living out in suburbia. Sandi Serr of Jayman Modus explained:

“We do have empty nesters, but the majority is the young people – very techie, very suburbia,” says Serr. "They want the lifestyle, they want it easy, they want the amenities, they want to live kind of in suburbia, but still have that inner-city feel."

Writer Jane Cardillo followed that quote with her assessment:

Ambleside offers all that. Walking paths connect the neighbourhood to The Currents, a retail area with restaurants, cafés and stores including Walmart, Safeway and Home Depot.

Walmart and Home Depot! Now that sounds just like downtown, doesn’t it? What is really meant by “inner-city feel” is of course the aesthetic of the building, not the location. But that doesn’t stop developers, builders, and others from making the misleading extrapolation. On the ION’s website the suggestion is even more explicit:

Welcome to the edge. A precarious balance for those who enjoy it. Close enough to downtown to enjoy the rush of an evening out while far enough away to relax for an evening in. A home as stylish as you and teeming with an air of sophistication. This is the heart of the city and pulses with the vibrance of urban energy. It’s contemporary, it’s chic. Live in the moment and welcome to the ion.

Close enough to downtown? Heart of the city? Vibrance of urban energy? You’ve got to be kidding me. Here’s where the ION is located on a map:

From where I live on 104 Street downtown, Google Maps estimates a 30 minute drive, and that’s not taking into consideration any traffic conditions.

I mocked the article on Twitter, and that sparked an interesting discussion with a number of individuals. To their credit, @AmblesideYEG jumped into the fray and suggested I head out to see for myself. So I did.

A Trip to the Edge

Sharon and I made the drive out to Ambleside on a warm and sunny Saturday in February. There was still some snow on the ground, but it was quickly melting. We were in the south side already, so we took Ellerslie Road to 170 Street. Any doubt about being on the edge of the city quickly disappeared.

Ambleside

It didn’t take long to find the ION itself, an attractive four story building located just east of 170 Street on Anderson Way SW.

The Ion

We parked in the back and went inside to see the show suites. Modern and well-appointed, there were no major surprises. We could definitely see ourselves in one of the two-bedroom suites.

The Ion

What we really wanted to know however, was whether or not living in the ION would be similar to living downtown. And that largely means proximity to amenities. One of the reasons we love living downtown is that we can walk to pretty much everything. The manmade lake behind the ION was fenced off, so we started walking down the sidewalk back toward 170 Street. We quickly realized that that’s where the sidewalk ended.

The Ion

So we got back in the car and drove to the other side of the lake. We really wanted to know how long it would take us to talk from the ION to The Currents, billed as “Edmonton’s finest new shopping destination.” We estimated about five minutes to cross the lake and started walking.

Ambleside

When we arrived at the south edge of The Currents, located on Windermere Boulevard, about twenty minutes had passed. We ended up walking another few minutes to the Tim Horton’s/Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream before heading back.

You can see a store directory and map for The Currents here. They’ve got all of the usual suspects for a power centre, including Walmart, Home Depot, Montana’s, nearly every bank, London Drugs, and Swiss Chalet. And like all other power centres, there are more parking lots than buildings.

the currents

Walking through the neighbourhood itself to get there was pleasant enough. It’s still very much a community under construction, but for the most part the sidewalks were in place and they have made an effort to make navigation easier.

Ambleside

And yes, there is limited transit service.

The Ion

So, it took about twenty-five minutes to walk from the urban-styled ION to the first amenities of The Currents. How does that compare to downtown? Not very well. Within twenty-five minutes of where we live on 104 Street, we can walk to at least two grocery stores, more than a dozen coffee shops, all of the hottest restaurants, nearly every arts organization and venue, Chinatown, the river valley, and much, much more. Heck if you walk fast you can make it across the river to La Poutine and Transcend Coffee or all the way to the High Street area (124 Street). There’s simply no comparison. Transit service does not improve the situation for Ambleside. Here’s an estimate of how far you can go from 104 Street in thirty minutes versus how far you can go from the ION in the same amount of time.

The ION is located south of Anthony Henday Drive which means you need a car to get there. The area is defined by the automobile. That’s why no matter what the ads say, almost no one is going to walk 25 minutes to get to the edge of a shopping centre. You need a car anyway, so why not use it to get around? Downtown, on the other hand, is defined by the pedestrian. You can walk everywhere, and excellent transit connectivity means you really can do without a vehicle.

Parking in Oliver

We thought a lot about our trip to Ambleside in the weeks that followed. I knew that I wanted to write something about my experience, but trashing the ION and the marketing and the area didn’t seem very constructive. Surely there must be something I could learn from the trip? A few weeks later it hit me.

We decided to visit the sales office for The Pearl, a new tower being constructed in Oliver at Jasper Avenue and about 120 Street. The tower itself is beautiful, and at 35 stories will offer some incredible views when it is completed. Perhaps a comparison with the ION is unfair, because prices for the Pearl start at $297,000 and quickly rise (the top suites are $1 million-plus) whereas at the ION they start at $174,455 and don’t climb nearly as high. Still, the ION was selling location, so I thought we might as well take a look at something that really does have location to sell.

The Pearl

Unfortunately, that’s not the message we got from the sales associate. After admiring the model tower, we asked her to tell us about the building. Pretty much the first thing she said was that you could get two parking stalls per unit! Each unit comes with one titled, heated underground parking stall but additional units are available for purchase. She explained that they want to attract people who are currently living in the suburbs, maybe with two vehicles, so the parking aspect is important.

I couldn’t believe it. The Pearl is located in the most densely populated neighbourhood in the city, with lots of restaurants and shops within just a few blocks, plus access to the river valley, downtown, and 124 Street, and the parking was the focus of the sales pitch.

I realized that the suburban developments are doing a better job of selling features they don’t even have than the urban developments are. What a wasted opportunity.

We need to do a better job of selling the core

No, condo living is not for everyone. But if you’re longing for an urban lifestyle, with access to everything, you’re not going to get that on the edge of the city. Maybe when Ambleside is further developed, some of the marketing messages will ring less hollow, but why wait? Downtown, Oliver, and other neighbourhoods in the core already offer what Ambleside can only dream of. Yet we don’t sell that.

I’m hopeful that things are changing. With the recent launch of the Ultima Tower, located on 103 Street at 103 Avenue, the proximity to amenities does seem to be front and centre (though they still emphasize the yet-to-be-constructed downtown arena more than what already exists). We need more of that kind of messaging if development in the core is going to have any hope of competing with the suburbs.

I don’t think everyone should live in the core, but I do want homebuyers to consider it. Downtown living will never beat edge-of-the-city when it comes to price, so we need to compete on other factors. We need to emphasize the strengths of living in the core and highlight the challenges with suburban living. And we need to be much more aggressive about it.

Meet me on the bridge: The Edmonton City Centre Redevelopment

By ·

It was 1974 when City Centre Place was completed, part of the Edmonton Centre development across from Churchill Square. The shopping mall we now know as Edmonton City Centre has had an interesting history, to say the least. TD Tower was added to the complex in 1976, and Oxford Tower and the Sutton Place Hotel followed in 1978. As Christopher Leo notes (archive), downtown was the place to be back then:

In the 1970s, downtown Edmonton was the retail centre of the metropolitan area, and the city had a policy of sustaining that role by supporting the viability of residential neighbourhoods near the centre of the city and placing limits on the amount of permitted suburban shopping centre development.

The development of West Edmonton Mall by the Triple Five Corporation in the 1980s had a significant negative impact on downtown Edmonton, and on the City Centre mall in particular. The policy limiting suburban shopping centre development was forgotten. As a result, efforts to restore life to downtown began and Triple Five came along with a solution: Eaton Centre. Christopher has documented the ups and downs of that project very thoroughly, so suffice it to say that what was eventually built in 1987 was a mere shadow of the original vision.

The two malls staggered along until 1999 when the Eaton’s chain went bankrupt. It was around that time that Randy Ferguson came to Edmonton on a mission to straighten things out. He remembers his boss at Oxford Properties, Jon Love, telling him two things before he left. “Go get the job done in the best interest of the community and this company,” and “remember one thing: that’s my hometown”. Randy’s journey began on January 2, 2000.

“There was very little energy downtown,” he recalled. Eaton Centre and Edmonton Centre had separate identities. Thinking back to the amount of space they took up downtown Randy told me how he felt: “it was depressing.” He had a job to do however, and his first task was to convince the Oxford board that they should spend money in Edmonton, their weakest market. “We said, don’t think about this as a retail play.” Randy pointed out that 40% of the office space downtown fed into the property. Four office tower lobbies and two hotels directly. The board gave Randy the go-ahead, but with a budget of just $44 million.

Randy and his team made a number of big changes over the next few years. Randy felt that a department store facing Churchill Square was inappropriate, so they convinced The Bay to move to the other side of the mall, to the vacant Eaton’s location. They turned the basement of the now empty east side into a parkade, and managed to attract Sport Check, Winners, and CBC. There were challenges along the way, of course. In the fall of 2001, Randy had arranged to have the western executives in charge of CBC’s TV and Radio divisions come to Edmonton so that he could pitch the idea of consolidating CBC’s properties in the mall downtown. The morning of the presentation was September 11. Needless to say the deal didn’t happen until many months later!

City Centre Wide Bridge

Merging the separate Eaton Centre and Edmonton Centre identities was an important aspect of the redevelopment. Randy wanted to do something architecturally to combine the two properties, and thought about a pedway bridge. “I think our bridges are terrible,” he told me. “They’re ugly, utilitarian, and generic.” In fact, Randy dislikes our pedway bridges so much that he pitched the idea of wrapping each one in scenes depicting the events taking place at the 2001 World Championships in Athletics. Unfortunately, the City didn’t go for it.

Randy wanted the bridge joining the properties to be more than just a pathway, he wanted it to be iconic. That’s how he came up with the wide bridge concept. “I wanted it to become the meeting place,” he recalled. “You know, ‘let’s go for coffee…meet me on the bridge!’” He envisioned a Starbucks and a patisserie on the main level of the bridge, with the rest of the space available for seating. They built a second level as well, a space that Randy thought would make an excellent wine bar. “We put two circular staircases on the bridge, ran power, and even roughed in plumbing.” As it turns out, Randy’s vision was never fully realized. “It has never been programmed the way I imagined it.” Today the bridge is home to a Tim Horton’s, a Telus Mobility kiosk, and a few retailers including a Bell store. The second level is empty and inaccessible. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon, due to the leases that are in place.

Edmonton City Centre Wide Bridge

Randy and his team had to be creative in order to achieve everything they wanted with the redevelopment project, which was finished in 2003. “We accomplished an $80 million spend on a budget of $44 million,” he said. He had spent some time studying funding programs elsewhere in North America, and came across a tax increment financing (TIF) project in Florida. “I liked it because it had a direct connection to rehabilitating the area, and it had a sunset, it wasn’t forever.” Randy worked with Al Maurer, City Manager and Randy Garvey, then the GM of Finance at the City of Edmonton, to see if he could make such a program work here. Alberta’s CRL legislation didn’t exist yet, so they could only apply the tax increment from the City to the project, the school taxes could not be touched. They followed the sunset model, whereby 100% of the tax increment went to the project in year one, 90% in year two, and so on. Randy thinks it might be the first example of a TIF used in Alberta.

City Centre Wide Bridge

When the time came to build the wide bridge, Randy again was out of money. Recognizing that it technically wasn’t on land that Oxford owned, they applied for a local improvement levy. The City studied the legislation and agreed that the funding mechanism was appropriate, so that’s where the money for the bridge came from. Further funding for the redevelopment project came through the creative use of a Commercial Mortgage Backed Security, something that would never happen today given the current recession.

Given his history with the concept, I asked Randy for his thoughts on the idea of using a CRL to help pay for the downtown arena. “I am a huge fan of CRL or TIF – it can make things happen that otherwise wouldn’t.” He doesn’t think the proposed formula is the best one, however. “I believe the school tax portion of CRL should be sacred, it shouldn’t be in play,” he told me. Randy also feels the sunset approach is better than 100% for 20 years as the current legislation allows. “We need to benefit from that growth, along with the guys that are making the investment.” He suggested that the City should get some local experience at the bargaining table, someone like Randy Garvey.

Randy supports the proposed arena project, even though it is competition for ProCura where he is COO. “It’s about critical mass. It’s about creating a new day.”

Alberta’s Community Revitalization Levy: Proposed Downtown Edmonton Arena District

By ·

This is the third part in a three-part series on Alberta’s CRL.

In the first part of the series, we looked at Alberta’s CRL legislation, identifying how it works and what the process is for creating a new CRL. In the second part of the series, we looked at Alberta’s three existing CRL projects, to get an understanding of how the funding mechanism has been used in the province thus far. Now we’ll look at the proposed downtown Edmonton Arena District, to see how a CRL might be used for that project.

Introduction

I am by no means the first to write about a CRL in relation to the proposed arena. Last month, Andy Grabia of Why Downtown? wrote a popular post on the proposed CRL. The use of a CRL has been a frequently cited potential source of funding since at least August 2009, but it was mentioned long before that actually. Notably, in the City Shaping: Summary Report of the Leadership Committee for a New Sports/Entertainment Facility for Edmonton (PDF) from March 2008, there’s this statement:

There is precedent in Alberta for the use of a community revitalization levy (CRL) for enabling projects such as this.

At the time that statement was made, the Rivers District CRL (the first in Alberta) was less than a year old. The three current CRLs are being used to revitalize large areas, and they are not centered around any specific development like an arena. Only one of them has received full approval and moved on to full implementation. I don’t think it’s fair to say there’s precedent for the use of a CRL to enable the arena project now, and it certainly wasn’t an accurate statement three years ago.

I point this out, because it seems as though that report has formed the basis of many other related decisions in the intervening years. It treats the CRL as if it is a well-known, well-established funding mechanism, which I don’t believe is true. Certainly TIFs have been used elsewhere in North America, but our context here is different.

What’s the potential?

As we saw in part one, there can be significant upside to a CRL, assuming development does occur and property values do rise. We also learned that there are a variety of factors that can affect this.

That same City Shaping report offered some financial estimates on the proposed arena CRL:

We have estimated the potential for $2.5 billion in additional assessment growth representing $20 million in incremental municipal and provincial property tax revenue annually. This estimate was reviewed for reasonableness by the City Assessor.

Back in February, Gary Klassen, GM of Planning & Development at the City of Edmonton, estimated that $1 billion in investment would generate $14 million a year in taxes.

Given that we don’t have another Alberta-based example of a CRL like the one being proposed for the arena, I asked the Katz Group to help me out. Can we really get the economic lift that proponents of the arena suggest? They pointed me in the direction of Columbus, which is the focus of a case study on their website. Nationwide Arena, home of the Columbus Blue Jackets, opened adjacent to the city’s downtown in 2000, in an area that once housed a state prison. A report published in July 2008 by the John Glenn School of Public Affairs found that the Arena District was responsible for stimulating more than $1 billion in investment:

"This is really a model of ways to use an arena to help revitalize downtowns," said Glenn School professor Robert Greenbaum.

The report suggests that the Arena District had a significant impact on jobs in the area:

An increase of more than 50 percent in the number of businesses in the Arena District since 2000. In addition to the Blue Jackets, the district’s 172 businesses include coffee shops, a movie theater and professional service firms. These businesses employed more than 5,000 full- and part-time workers in 2006, and between 2000 and 2006 they generated $1.46 billion in payroll and $6.13 billion in revenue.

And on property values:

Appraised property values in the Arena District increased by 267 percent between 1999 and 2008, compared to a 22 percent increase in property values for the entire downtown area.

I encourage you to read through the report. Of course, the findings are not without dispute. You can read another perspective on Columbus here.

Hypothetical CRL Boundary

Though the City of Edmonton has been working with a conceptual model for the arena CRL, they haven’t shared it publicly. In response to Council’s questions, they did offer some insight, however. The model includes:

  • 300,000 square feet or retail built over 20 years
  • 370,000 square feet of hotel built over 6 years
  • 95,000 square feet of casino built in the first year
  • 1,500,000 square feet of office built over 20 years
  • 1,800,000 square feet of residential built over 10 years

The model assumes natural assessment appreciation of 3% per year, and a 3% increase in municipal and educational taxes per year.

The model suggests that $160 million in incremental taxes could be garnered, $125 million of which could be dedicated to the arena while the remaining $35 million would go to other public infrastructure.

You can download the relevant spreadsheets in PDF here.

As for the conceptual boundary, which also remains private, the following information was shared:

  • The boundary includes the Aurora project, which they estimate could generate $4.1 million in tax revenue
  • The boundary includes a redeveloped casino, which they estimate could generate $0.8 million in tax revenue
  • The boundary includes the EPCOR Tower, which they estimate could generate $5.0 million to $6.8 million in tax revenue

That shows how much more lucrative commercial development like an office tower can be. There’s a risk, however, in that it is quite likely the EPCOR Tower will be completed before a CRL is approved, which means it would generate very little or no lift in property taxes. Remember the baseline assessment is set to December 31 of the year in which the CRL is approved.

I have absolutely no inside information on what the CRL boundary for the proposed arena district might look like, but here’s a hypothetical example:

You can see the proposed Edmonton Arena District in the middle (the dark part), and the red is the hypothetical CRL boundary. Why did I choose that boundary? A few reasons:

  • The hypothetical boundary covers an area of 1.4 square kilometers, which is right in the middle of the three existing CRL boundaries.
  • The hypothetical boundary includes the Aurora project, as well as the EPCOR tower.
  • It highlights a risk, that the CRL might be located adjacent or very close to the Quarters CRL, potentially affecting the success of both projects.

We should learn more about the City’s model and boundary when City Council meets on January 17, 2011.

Is the timeline realistic?

The Oilers’ lease at Rexall Place expires on June 30, 2014, and the Katz Group has said it has no intention of renewing that agreement. That gives the project a deadline of less than four years. As we learned in part one, the ideal process for obtaining a CRL takes roughly two years, and in part two, we found out that only the Rivers District CRL happened that quickly. Mayor Mandel recently suggested a decision could be made by April 2011, which makes the window of time to obtain funding and complete construction more like three years. It just doesn’t seem likely to happen. Here’s the response from Administration when asked about the timeline:

The Katz group has identified that if an arena project goes ahead it will happen concurrently with development of an office tower in the district.  The expected construction window for both the office tower and arena is 18 – 24 months.  This schedule for concurrent development is aggressive.  For comparison, the current  EPCOR office tower project is scheduled to be constructed over 36 months.

It’s certainly possible that a CRL could be approved in the given timeframe, but rezoning, building permits, design, and all the other elements of construction would likely take more time than is available (given the Katz Group’s deadline).

What are the risks?

In Administration’s answers to Council’s questions, they addressed one of the bigger risks of using a CRL to fund the project – the current economy. The answer notes rising office vacancies downtown and declining lease rates, and goes on to say:

A significant component of the Katz Group proposal is the construction of new office and commercial space.  This type of space would contribute considerably to the front ending of a CRL area, however, the current market conditions suggest that there is considerable risk if anchor tenants are not committed to the space before construction.  The Katz group intent is to attract new business to the City that currently does not have a place in the market.  If this is not possible it may result in existing businesses moving from other parts of Edmonton to the new development.

Another answer gave similar information:

A faster assessment lift would occur if the Katz Group was to construct certain developments (i.e. in advance of natural demand) that could increase incremental taxes within the boundary.  Unless new tenants are coming from outside Edmonton that otherwise would not locate here, then these incremental taxes (in advance of natural development) may only reflect a shift in tenants from one area of downtown to the other.

Those answers highlight an issue that Scott Hennig of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation has frequently pointed out – the potential that the resulting development isn’t actually new, and is just a shift from other areas of the city. That would have the side effect of taking taxes that would have been in general revenue and locking them into the CRL. Scott told me:

The only way a new hotel (or bar) will get built next to the arena and not just shift demand is if all of a sudden people’s incomes go up (in aggregate, not just say, construction workers) as a result of the new arena and development and therefore they want to use that money to purchase additional products, or if it can be shown that Edmonton’s population will grow faster as a result of the new development, or if you can increase tourism.

It’s an issue that is certainly worth thinking about. How can you prove that a business located in the area specifically because of the arena? How can you prove it wouldn’t have been built elsewhere in the city were it not for the arena? How can you show that tourism increased as a result? How can you show that the arena caused population to grow faster than it would have normally? All of these things are hypothetical benefits that are difficult to prove in practice.

Scott also made a good comment on demand, in response to a question about the arena potentially inducing a housing development that would not have occurred in Edmonton otherwise:

You can be sure that if there was a demand for additional housing to be built, it would get built. The city didn’t use a CRL in anywhere else in the city and houses, condos, apartment buildings, townhouses and other housing still got built over the past 100 years.

Another risk, of course, is that not enough development takes place over the 20 year timeframe of the CRL, leaving the City burdened with the remaining debt.

Sharing The Risk

Both Mayor Mandel and the Katz Group have repeatedly said they want to negotiate a deal that is fair to all parties involved. More specifically, the Katz Group has said:

We seek a functional partnership with the City and a fair balancing of risk between the parties.  Neither the City nor the Katz Group should bear risk disproportionately.

Could that sharing of risk apply to a CRL? We know that an important part of the plan for a CRL is to outline how any potential shortfall would be covered. By default, the City would have to cover the debt out of general revenues, taking on all the risk and potentially impacting the services it provides to citizens. Perhaps the Katz Group and the City could agree to share that responsibility, something that Administration has confirmed is an option:

An agreement can be attempted to be negotiated between the parties with respect to the issue of a guarantee to cover debt servicing if projected development does not occur in the CRL area.

Paula Simons has noted in the past that a similar deal in San Diego took place, but at the time the Katz Group wasn’t interested in such an arrangement. More recently they have indicated that such an arrangement could be a part of any negotiations with the City.

Sharing the risk could also refer to the resulting ownership of the project. It is important to recognize that a CRL is public money. Mayor Mandel has stated that if public funding was used to build the arena, there would be “big time say by the city and citizens.”

Transparency

I think both the City of Edmonton and the Katz Group have done a poor job of informing constituents about the CRL thus far, and I’d like to see them both address that shortcoming.

On the Katz Group’s Answers page, there’s a question about public investment that states:

The Community Revitalization Levy (CRL) is drawn from the enhanced tax revenue from the developments in and around the district.  The CRL would pay down the city’s loan and then create a revenue stream in perpetuity.

No introduction or link to more information on the CRL. It’s as if “public investment” and “community revitalization levy” are one and the same, whereas the CRL is just one of a variety of public funding options. The City of Edmonton is guilty of jumping the gun as well. The questionnaire that was made available last month included a question about the CRL, without explaining what it is. Handouts were made available at the open houses that took place, but just 300 people attended those – compared to nearly 29,000 responses for the questionnaire. The City has since added a page on the funding model.

The City’s findings from that public consultation reinforce the idea that more education needs to be done. Participants noted that more study on the CRL is required, and that the “concept is very hard to understand.”

I asked Scott Hennig a bunch of questions about the CRL, and one of his comments in response stood out for me:

Unquestionably, the city can spend tax dollars to make certain locations more attractive, or using zoning laws or their land ownership to make certain types of buildings mandatory, but they don’t need a CRL to do that.

I think it’s really important that both the Katz Group and the City of Edmonton are transparent about what the CRL is, what the CRL is not, and how it might be used.

If Council decides a CRL is appropriate, the process of obtaining it needs to be much more open as well – when did you first hear about the Belvedere or Quarters CRL? My guess is not until the discussion about using a CRL for the arena started. That’s unacceptable, given that public consultation is a key component of obtaining a CRL.

Transparency on this issue moving forward is key.

Two Basic Assumptions

Let’s revisit the “two basic assumptions” we identified in part one. Is the arena project worth the risks associated with using a CRL to fund it? Public opinion on this seems mixed. Some people feel that a new arena is unnecessary and will do little to revitalize downtown. Others think the arena is a game-changer, an important catalyst project (as identified by the Capital City Downtown Plan). The truth likely lies somewhere in-between. As for the second assumption – is there a sound expectation that development will occur as a result of the arena? The fear is that we end up with another City Centre debacle, where additional development was promised but never built. The Katz group did not provide specifics, but did try to reassure Council that additional development will take place:

Our dialogue with  our consultants and prospective tenants and partners leaves us with a high level of confidence that we will be able to develop a vibrant entertainment district around the arena. We have had substantive discussions with 6 major hoteliers and the level of interest in placing two hotels in the Arena District is very high. We have nine written Letters of Interest from a variety of international, national and local hospitality and entertainment providers and have had numerous other verbal expressions of interest.  We have also had promising discussions with potential anchor tenants for the proposed office towers.  We are confident that there will be a market within the District for both student residences and condominiums.

Final Thoughts

In this three-part series, we’ve looked at how Alberta’s community revitalization levy legislation came into existence, we’ve examined the impact it can have, and we’ve identified the process that must take place for a CRL to be approved. We also explored the three current CRL projects in the province. Finally, we’ve taken all of that information and applied it to help us understand how a CRL might be used for the proposed downtown Edmonton Arena District. There are opportunities and challenges associated with a CRL for the proposed project, and I think it is clear that there’s a need for more specific information.

The arena project is a moving target of course. We’ll learn much more about the City’s business model framework as well as their thoughts on the use of a CRL at the January 17, 2011 City Council meeting.

Alberta’s Community Revitalization Levy:

  1. Introduction
  2. Rivers District, Belvedere, The Quarters
  3. Proposed Downtown Edmonton Arena District

Alberta’s Community Revitalization Levy: Rivers District, Belvedere, The Quarters

By ·

This is the second part in a three-part series on Alberta’s CRL.

Armed with a better understanding of Alberta’s CRL legislation, I turned my attention to the three active CRL projects in the province. What are the projects for? Why is a CRL appropriate for them? What can we learn from the projects that will help us when exploring the idea of using a CRL in the future? That’s some of what we’re going to look at in this post.

To quickly recap the process: there is some back-and-forth between the city and the province in establishing a CRL. First, the Lieutenant Governor must approve the regulation, which includes the CRL boundary. Second, City Council must approve the plan & bylaw for the CRL (and these can be done separately). And finally, that plan & bylaw must also be approved by the province. The three projects we’re going to look at are at different stages of that process.

Calgary’s Rivers District

The first specific CRL regulation to be passed in Alberta was for the City of Calgary Rivers District, back in 2006. The Rivers District project was the catalyst for the MGA amendment that made CRLs possible in Alberta.

 City of Calgary Rivers District Community Revitalization Levy Regulation (AR 232/2006)

The Rivers District is the furthest along of all the CRLs in Alberta – everything has been approved and the City is well into implementation. It was 2007 when everything was finally approved, so the baseline for tax assessments would have been frozen to the values on December 31, 2007.

It’s worth pointing out that the CRL is just a small part of a much larger project known as The Rivers:

The vision for a revitalized Rivers district is more than a place to live, it is a lively urban destination.

This map shows the area the project covers, and as you can see, it is quite expansive. The idea is to reclaim the waterfront, and to make the area more desirable for development. In addition to infrastructure upgrades, a new riverwalk is in the works (phase 1 is now open actually).

The CRL boundary is large, but it is a small part of the overall project. Here’s what it looks like (KML):

The boundary covers an area of roughly 1.9 square kilometers (478 acres).

One of the big advantages to using a CRL for the Rivers District is that the City of Calgary owned much of the land within the boundary. That’s important because it means the baseline assessment for those assets would be zero, and there’s lots of potential for getting some of that all-important lift.

I spent some time talking with Kathleen Young, Development Manager for The Quarters Downtown at the City of Edmonton, and found out that she actually worked on the Rivers District CRL! Her knowledge and experience on that project was one of the reasons that she came to Edmonton. You know what they say, it’s a small world.

Kathleen pointed out that the CRL boundary for the Rivers District includes some key developments, notably The Bow (here’s a photo of the building I took back in July). When finished, The Bow will become the headquarters for EnCana, and will be the tallest office building in Canada outside Toronto. Groundbreaking for the project took place in June 2007, around the same time that the Rivers District CRL was approved, which means almost all of the incremental value realized through the development of the building will be captured by the CRL.

To work on The Rivers, the City of Calgary created a wholly owned corporation called the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC). They have some great information on the various aspects of the project if you’d like to learn more. CMLC was actually awarded a Canadian Urban Institute Brownie Award in 2008 for the CRL:

The Canadian Urban Institute’s annual Brownie Award recognizes leadership, innovation and environmental sustainability in brownfields redevelopment across Canada. CMLC won in the category of "Financing, Risk Management and Partnership" for our work in the creation of the Rivers District Community Revitalization Levy Regulation. A "made in Alberta" version of the U.S. Tax Increment Financing (TIF)— which is a widely used financing mechanism for redevelopment of brownfield sites in the United States—provides a sustainable source of funding to finance the significant infrastructure development required in the Rivers District for a 20-year period.

It sure looks like the Rivers District CRL will be a success!

Belvedere (Fort Road)

The first CRL regulation to be passed for Edmonton was for the Belvedere redevelopment project, commonly known as the Fort Road Redevelopment project. The project has been in the works since at least 2000, and has evolved quite a bit over the last decade. It was very much in the works before CRL legislation came into effect.

 City of Edmonton Belvedere Community Revitalization Levy Regulation (AR 57/2010)

The Belvedere CRL isn’t quite as far along as the Rivers District, but it is nearly there. Kathleen clarified that the borrowing bylaw (14883) has been approved, but the plan bylaw is still in the works. Armed with the $34,250,000 specified in the borrowing bylaw, the City has undertaken much of the infrastructure upgrades planned for the area.

Here’s the CRL boundary for the project (KML):

The boundary covers an area of roughly 1.3 square kilometers (324 acres).

A unique element of the Belvedere CRL is that the City owns almost all of the land within the boundary. As a result, when they sell the land all of the incremental value will be captured by the CRL, making it much less likely that the City would have to fall back on general revenue to cover the debt.

The Belvedere project is an interesting one. It is unlikely that development would have taken place in the area without the City of Edmonton stepping in to try to make the area more attractive and desirable. Through that lens, the use of a CRL makes a lot of sense. If you think back to the two basic assumptions highlighted in part one, the Belvedere CRL certainly passes the first – it’s worth the risk.

As for the second assumption – there’s a sound expectation that development will occur – that one is less certain. Especially given the challenging economy, it could be a while before anything substantial happens. Having said that, the first sale of the Station Pointe lands last year for $5.2 million is hopefully a sign of things to come (that project received $481,000 in federal funding in August). The redevelopment project is still in the early stages, and Rick Daviss at the City of Edmonton confirmed that at least a couple new conditional deals are in place, so there’s movement.

There’s more information on the Station Pointe project here – it won a Brownie Award in 2008.

You can find lots of background and other information on the Fort Road redevelopment project here.

The Quarters

The newest CRL regulation to be passed was for The Quarters Downtown, a redevelopment project here in Edmonton previously known as the Downtown East redevelopment. I wrote about The Quarters a couple weeks ago, and I’d encourage you to look at that post to get an overview of the project.

 City of Edmonton The Quarters Community Revitalization Levy Regulation (AR 173/2010)

As the newest CRL project, The Quarters has the furthest to go before it is ready for implementation. The province has approved the regulation and boundary, and Administration is now working on the plan and bylaw to present to Council. That will happen sometime in 2011, according to Kathleen. Her team wants to make sure they get it right.

Here is the CRL boundary for the project (KML):

The boundary covers an area of roughly  0.93 square kilometers (229 acres).

The Quarters is a large plan that will proceed in phases. Once completed, it is anticipated that the area will accommodate a population of nearly 20,000 people, up from less than 2500 today. The project is made up of five distinct districts, the jewel of which is known as The Armature.

An important part of any CRL plan is the way in which the City will cover the cost of the project if enough development does not occur. The default fallback is always general revenue, but Kathleen said they are looking at additional funding sources as well, such as government grants.

Kathleen told me that among other things, some of the CRL money will be used for streetscape improvements, some will be used for land acquisition to consolidate parcels for resale, and lots would be used to develop The Armature. The goal is to make that part of Edmonton a much more livable area, and the redevelopment focus is on residential assets.

As I have said before, it is an exciting project for our city! You can learn more about The Quarters Downtown here.

The project will be an interesting one to pay attention to if you’re interested in CRLs, because there are still a number of steps in the process to go.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve made it this far, you should now have a better understanding of the three active CRL projects in Alberta. You can draw your own conclusions, but a few things I wanted to highlight include:

  • All three boundaries are similarly sized
  • Infrastructure upgrades and improvements are a major part of all three projects
  • In the Rivers District and Belvedere, and to a lesser extent in The Quarters, an important consideration is the amount of City-owned land

I think it is important to look at what we already have when trying to understand how a CRL could be applied to future projects. In the next part of the series we’ll do just that, using the proposed downtown arena as our future project.

Alberta’s Community Revitalization Levy:

  1. Introduction
  2. Rivers District, Belvedere, The Quarters
  3. Proposed Downtown Edmonton Arena District

Alberta’s Community Revitalization Levy: Introduction

By ·

This is the first part in a three-part series on Alberta’s CRL.

Recently I decided to start learning more about Alberta’s Community Revitalization Levy (CRL), and I was initially struck by how little information was readily available. I searched and searched but didn’t find much. Maybe that’s because what we call the community revitalization levy here in Alberta is known as tax increment financing (TIF) elsewhere. It turns out that TIF has been available as a public financing method for more than 50 years! The State of California first used the approach in 1952, and now Arizona is the only state in the USA without some sort of TIF legislation.

Here’s how Wikipedia describes TIF:

When a development or public project is carried out, there is often an increase in the value of surrounding real estate, and perhaps new investment (new or rehabilitated buildings, for example). This increased site value and investment sometimes generates increased tax revenues. The increased tax revenues are the “tax increment.” Tax Increment Financing dedicates tax increments within a certain defined district to finance debt issued to pay for the project.

The idea is to use the “lift” generated by the increased tax revenues to pay for the debt that financed the project.

Alberta’s CRL

In Alberta, this legislation is relatively new. Bill 28 received Royal Assent on May 10, 2005 and amended the Municipal Government Act (PDF) to include Division 4 under Section 381, which enables municipalities to create a community revitalization levy bylaw (which must be approved by the Lieutenant Governor in Council).

Since that legislation came into effect, there have been three CRLs created in Alberta (as far as I can tell): Calgary’s Rivers District, the project for which Bill 28 was created, and the Belvedere (Fort Road) and Quarters redevelopment projects here in Edmonton. You can read more about all three projects in part two.

There are a few key aspects of the CRL to be aware of:

  • The CRL only applies to a very specific area (the CRL boundary).
  • The tax revenue that contributes to the CRL is split between the City and the Province.
  • The maximum amount of time a CRL can exist is 20 years, starting in the year when the bylaw is approved by the Lieutenant Governor in Council.
  • The Lieutenant Governor in Council can approve a CRL bylaw in whole or in part or with variations and subject to conditions.

And don’t be mislead by the name “levy” – the CRL is a tax as defined in the MGA. It’s a funding mechanism, nothing more.

From my read of the Municipal Government Act, there are no rules or restrictions on the type of area that a CRL can apply to. In theory a CRL works best in an area that is “blighted” but the legislation does not enforce this. This was the case in California as well, until it became clear that the legislation was being abused.

What’s the potential impact of a CRL?

I asked Rick Daviss, Manager of Corporate Properties at the City of Edmonton, to help me understand the CRL. He was very helpful and pointed me in the direction of some very useful information.

The first thing we looked was a hypothetical example of the impact of a CRL. Here’s the situation:

  • Current use: 2.0 acre parcel of land improved with a 30,500 square foot warehouse.
  • Proposed use: 2.0 acre parcel of land improved with a high rise residential condo development (proposed density of 265 units (RA9), FAR of 3.0, unit value assessed at $200/square foot).

So we’ve got an old warehouse on some land and we want to replace it with a condo. Let’s look at the assessed value:

  • Current use: $1,525,000 (this is known as the assessment baseline)
  • Proposed use: $44,431,200

Which gives us an increase in value of $42,906,200. Now let’s look at the tax assessment:

  Before After Difference
2006 Municipal Mill Rate 5.7484 5.7484 –
2006 Municipal Tax $8,766 $255,408 $246,642
2006 School Mill Rate 3.6182 3.6182 –
2006 School Levy $5,518 $5,518 $0
2006 CRL N/A $155,243 $155,243

The mill rate is used to calculate the property tax, and you can think of it as the amount of tax required divided by the amount of tax available. So if the City needs $2 billion in taxes but only $1 billion can be generated based on the assessments, the mill rate is 2. The property tax is then calculated by multiplying the assessed value by the mill rate, and dividing by 1000. So to get $8,766 in our example above, $1,525,000 is multiplied by 5.7484 and then divided by 1000.

Let’s look at the Before column first. The total tax assessment there was $14,284, and the two bottom rows are N/A because we don’t have a CRL in the before case. Both the City and School taxes are calculated the same way: assessed value multiplied by the mill rate divided by 1000. The province gets $5,518 and the City gets $8,766, all of which goes into what’s known as “general revenue”.

Now let’s look at the After column. The total tax assessment there is $416,169. The City tax is calculated the same as before, but now that we have a much higher assessed value, we end up with $246,642 in increased tax revenue. All of this will go to the CRL. The School tax is broken into two, because only the incremental tax revenue will go toward the CRL. So the $5,518 is calculated the same as in the Before case, and this goes to the province. The provincial part of the CRL is calculated as follows: the increase in assessed value ($42,906,200) multiplied by the mill rate divided by 1000. That gives us the $155,243, all of which will go the CRL.

So now you see why the CRL is such an attractive proposition: it looks like we have $401,885 in new tax that we can contribute to the CRL. And this could happen with all developments inside the CRL boundary. There are a number of caveats, however. The first is that the CRL amount will vary from year to year based on the assessment (which makes the economy and depreciation relevant) and on the school mill rate which also changes from year to year. The second is that the type of development is important – City owned properties are tax exempt, for instance. A third is that the City tax revenues as well as a portion of the School tax revenues are dedicated to the CRL, where they would otherwise have gone into general revenue.

How is a CRL created?

Rick walked me through the process of creating a CRL, and I can tell you it sure doesn’t sound like a trivial task. In the best case, Rick estimates it would take just less than two years from concept through to the start of implementation to make a CRL reality. Here’s a high-level overview of the process:

Those five steps would include, roughly:

  1. Administration conducts background research, identifies the potential boundary, comes up with preliminary revenue estimates, and prepares for and asks Council for approval to make a request to the Minister of Municipal Affairs.
  2. The Minister of Municipal Affairs considers the request and recommends an Order in Council for an establishment regulation. This step also includes some back and forth to establish the area and other parameters.
  3. The Lieutenant Governor in Council considers and approves the Order in Council for the area to be established.
  4. Administration conducts more research, holds public hearings, drafts the proposed bylaw, has it reviewed by all relevant departments as well as the province, and acquires Council approval of the bylaw.
  5. The Lieutenant Governor in Council approves the bylaw.

After all that is done, the CRL can proceed. It makes sense to plan for the Lieutenant Governor in Council’s final approval as close to the start of construction as possible, in order to get the maximum possible time under the CRL legislation.

What are the risks associated with a CRL?

As others have pointed out, a CRL is not a risk-free proposition. There are a number of issues to consider.

What if a project does not lead to an increase in property values and does not result in any new development? In this case, there would be no “lift” to pay down the debt of the project. Rick noted that a plan for this kind of scenario needs to be in place before the province will approve a CRL. It can be as simple as the City swallowing the cost of the project, as long as it can specify how it will be paid for. Another option is for a third party to backstop the plan.

Another issue is the potential shift in taxes. Will the project really result in new development – development that would not have occurred in the city otherwise – or is it merely a shift in development, from areas outside the CRL to the area inside the CRL boundary? How would you know, one way or the other?

A related issue is the decrease in general tax revenue. If the property tax inside the CRL boundary is no longer going into general revenue, what does that mean for the services the City provides? In the worst case, you can imagine the entire City being covered in various CRL projects. That would result in zero general tax revenue and thus no way for the City to pay for the services it provides to citizens. What is the impact of one or two CRL projects? That’s less clear. Same goes for the school taxes. A common concern for many people is that they don’t want their school taxes going toward the CRL instead of schools. Of course, in reality the province doesn’t come up with education programs based on the amount of school tax it receives – tax revenue does go into the Alberta School Foundation Fund, but that money is combined with whatever amount of general revenues the province deems appropriate.

Can a CRL really work?

For a CRL to work, Rick says you need to make two basic assumptions:

  1. The project the CRL would be funding is a good thing, and is worth the risk.
  2. There’s a sound expectation that development will occur as a result.

If you think the project is worth the risk, and you’re confident that development will occur as a result of taking that risk, then a CRL can be a good funding source. Rick highlighted the Belvedere (Fort Road) project as meeting this basic criteria: it’s an area that needs to be redeveloped and it’s unlikely that anything would happen without some initiative by the City, plus there’s a good chance that other development will occur now as a result of the City going in and cleaning things up.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve made it this far, you should now have a better understanding of how Alberta’s Community Revitalization Levy came to be, how it works, and what the potential impacts and pitfalls of the legislation are.

In the next part of this series, we’ll look at Alberta’s three current CRL projects in more detail.

Alberta’s Community Revitalization Levy:

  1. Introduction
  2. Rivers District, Belvedere, The Quarters
  3. Proposed Downtown Edmonton Arena District

Quarterly Update on the City Centre Airport Redevelopment

By ·

Today the City of Edmonton provided an update on the City Centre Redevelopment. Phil Sande, the project’s executive director, gave a brief overview of the report (PDF) that will go to Council on Friday, and was available to the media for questions. As you can see, the project now has a logo!

Phil talked most about the process for the design competition. Submissions from the five finalists are due on January 21, 2011, and are to contain display material, a five-minute video, and written content. Each finalist must also make a case for why they should be chosen. Here are the updated dates:

  • January 21, 2011: Submissions from finalists due.
  • January 24/25, 2011: Submissions should be available to the public online.
  • January 28 – February 6, 2011: Submissions will be on display at City Hall (and other locations).
  • February 8-10, 2011: Selection Committee will review the submissions and interview each team.
  • March 2011: Recommendation from Selection Committee will go to City Council.
  • April/May 2011: Winning submission selected and contract negotiations begin.

The winning submission will then undergo a 15 month “master plan process” which will include extensive public involvement. After that process is complete, the City will have more reliable numbers for both number of residents and potential tax revenue from the redevelopment. Tenders for construction of the first phase of the project could go out as early as the summer of 2013, with utility work beginning around the same time.

Phil Sande, CCR

There’s an update on the environmental analysis in the report:

The Phase II Environmental Site Assessment on the east portion of Edmonton City Centre Airport site identified three locations where there are contaminants above acceptable criteria. A risk management approach is being applied to these sites, which means no remediation is necessary until such time as the site is redeveloped.

There were lots of questions about the updated revenue estimates for the redevelopment. Here’s what the report says:

Based on current development practices, upon full build out, preliminary estimates suggest that the City Centre Redevelopment will generate annual tax revenues in excess of $20 million per year and generate net sales revenues in excess of $70 million.

Phil stressed that we’ll have better information after the master plan process, and that the estimates are conservative and very approximate. He cited a change in parameters (notably the amount of land set aside for institutional use, and an increase in the amount of residential use and thus a decrease in the more lucrative commercial space) as contributing to any differences from previous estimates.

Here’s what Economic Impact Analysis (PDF) from June 2009 said:

The overall benefit to the City of Edmonton resulting from redevelopment of the ECCA lands is estimated to total $93 million (2009 $ net present value over 35 years using a 10% discount rate).  This benefit is expected to range between $55 and $168 million when the discount rate applied to future costs and revenues is varied by ±3%.

You can find all the other relevant documents here. It’ll be interesting to see how these numbers change as we learn more, but right now, they don’t seem that far off from where we were at last year.

Phil said that the redevelopment is still a vitally important project for the City of Edmonton, one that will bring a number of benefits to Edmontonians. His team has not received anything from the finalists in the design competition just yet, but it sounds like they are hard at work. I look forward to seeing what they have come up with in January!

UPDATE: Here’s a PDF document that outlines the range of redevelopment opportunities as they were envisioned in 2009. The net revenues of the options range from $91 million to $486 million.

UPDATE2: Another update from the City, received this evening:

Previous estimates of City revenues ranging from $91M to $486M remain accurate. These are based on the City acting as developer in four possible redevelopment scenarios. The anticipated revenue from the sale of the land as reported in the update is $70M. This number is based on the City selling the land to a developer, rather than acting as the developer itself, as is intended. The option for the City to simply sell the land was not one of the previous four redevelopment scenarios, and should not have been included in the quarterly update report. It is not an option the City is considering.

Edmonton City Centre Airport Design Competition Finalists

By ·

Today Simon Farbrother, City Manager, and Phil Sande, City Centre Airport Executive Director, announced the five finalists in the City Centre Airport Lands Design Competition. These finalists will now work until the end of the year on their plans to redevelop the 216-hectare site into a sustainable, transit-oriented community.

City Centre Airport Design Competition Finalists

From the press release:

“We had an overwhelming response to our request for qualifications,” says Phil Sande, Executive Director, City Centre Airport redevelopment project, City of Edmonton. “We’ve received 33 submissions with a wealth of experience in innovative sustainable design, urban design and redevelopment, engineering and architectural design.”

The five winning firms are (in alphabetical order):

  1. BNIM, Kansas City, USA
  2. Foster & Partners, London, UK
  3. KCAP, Rotterdam, Netherlands
  4. Perkins + Will, Vancouver, Canada
  5. Sweco International AB, Stockholm, Sweden

The contents of their submissions is confidential, so all we got to see were the covers of the proposals. The City also suggested the following visuals: BNIM, Foster & Partners, KCAP, Perkins + Will, Sweco International AB.

Local firms involved in the proposals include Williams Engineering, Bunt & Associates, Cohos Evamy, and Calder Bateman.

City Centre Airport Design Competition Finalists

Their submissions were based upon the Master Plan Principles that City Council approved earlier this year. The review committee included: Simon Farbrother, City Manager; Gord Jackson, Acting Manager of the Policy and Planning Branch; Rick Daviss, Manager of Corporate Properties Branch; Peter Hackett, Exec. Professor School of Business, VP Research and a Fellow of the National Institute for Nanotechnology at the University of Alberta; Chris Henderson, CEO of Delphi Group, Canada’s leading strategic consulting firm in the environment and clean energy sectors; and Todd Latham, President of Actual Media Inc. which produces ReNew Canada, the infrastructure and renewal magazine. James McKellar, Associate Dean, External Relations Academic Director, Program in Real Estate and Infrastructure, Schulich School of Business, York University ensured the review process was transparent and fair.

Some additional notes from the press conference:

  • The first phase of the build out could be completed by 2024.
  • Preliminary results of the environmental evaluation show three small sites with limited contamination potential. The findings thus far were described as “very positive”. More information will be available in about 3 weeks.
  • Each firm will receive an honorarium of $50,000 to participate.
  • Phil said that consideration of Edmonton as a Winter City was important, and was something the finalists both embraced and have experience with.

Edmontonians will get to review all five submissions at the end of the year. The review committee will then be joined by Lars Franne, Retired Project Manager, Hammarby Sjöstad Sustainable Redevelopment, Stockholm, Sweden, and potentially others, and will make a recommendation to City Council, who ultimately has the final decision.

It’s great to see this project moving forward!

UPDATE: Here are the biographies of the five finalists (in PDF), provided by the City.

Edmonton City Centre Airport Lands Master Plan Principles

By ·

A report went to City Council today outlining the vision and principles for development of the City Centre Airport lands.

The ECCA lands will be home to 30,000 Edmontonians living, working and learning in a sustainable community that uses 100% renewable energy, is carbon neutral, significantly reduces its ecological footprint, and empowers residents to pursue a range of sustainable lifestyle choices.

You can download the report here. A few of the highlights for me:

  • The challenge is to be experimental, not to wait for the perfect solution to arrive.
  • Common goal is defined by: design excellence, empowering people, reducing consumption, offering lifestyle options, innovating, measuring achievements.
  • Examples mentioned: Vastra Hamnen (Western Front), Malmo, and Hammarby Sjostad, Stockholm, both in Sweden, and One Planet Communities.
  • The goal is to achieve LEED Gold certification for all buildings, and to encourage LEED Platinum.
  • Under transportation: LRT is a focus, of course, but also “designs to discourage high speed traffic”, “bike paths and multi-use trails to provide fully connected routes”.
  • Technology is identified as a key component of the Master Plan: “A key to success in adapting new technologies will be the engagement of three major local players: EPCOR, the University of Alberta and NAIT.”
  • Our climate is highlighted: “It must be recognized that Edmonton has severe winter conditions, which bring their own challenges, but these need not stand in the way of achieving sustainable development.”

The report also highlights the historical significance of the lands, and states that the Master Plan must embody that through preservation, naming, interpretation, and designation:

  • Identify opportunities to re-use hangars as recreation facilities or other community facilities (e.g. farmers market).
  • Explore the idea of a “mall of museums” that would acknowledge the historical significance of structures such as Hangars 8 and 11 that are all on the Inventory of Historic Resources in Edmonton.
  • Acknowledge the history of the site through naming opportunities for thoroughfares, places and buildings that are associated with the past.

The Master Plan process will be guided by a new steering committee, and is broken into the Request for Qualifications (RFQ) and Request for Proposals (RFP) phases. In the RFP stage, the City is looking for 3-5 proposals. Selection would be made by “an independent jury of distinguished professionals.” Excluding formal approvals by Council, the entire process is expected to take a year.

I think the report is a great first step, but there’s still a long way to go. In the background section, there are lots of specific targets, such as the One Planet principles that include “100% of power coming from renewable energy”, “98% reduction in solid landfill waste”, “82% reduction in CO2”, and “20% of materials manufactured on site”. The section that outlines the Master Plan is largely devoid of such targets, however. I found only a couple:

  • At least 20% of the housing units built must be affordable housing.
  • Achieve an overall density of 25 units per acre minimum.

To get an idea of what 25 units per acre looks like, check out this PDF (4 MB).

Council will be discussing the report today. You can watch or listen live online here.

What do you do in your spare time?

By ·

A post at the Canadian Developer Connection blog last week caught my eye. Joey deVilla posted about something he had read at the Harvard Business blog related to interview questions. In both posts you learn about Captain Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot who safely made an emergency landing in the Hudson river last month. What does “Sully” do in his spare time? Anything and everything related to aviation, apparently. As a result, both posts argue that the most important interview question to ask, is:

“What do you do in your spare time?”

I couldn’t agree more. People who are excellent at their jobs are probably passionate about what they do, and spend more time and energy on things related to their area of expertise/interest than the average person. My experience with software development definitely backs this up. The best developers are usually the ones who go home and work on a hobby project after they’re done with the “day job”. There are exceptions, of course, but as a general rule I think you need to practice your craft outside of work to be good at it.

I’m currently reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, and right near the beginning of the book he argues the same point. Practice makes perfect. He estimates you need to spend 10,000 hours practicing something to truly master it. Gladwell uses The Beatles, Bill Joy, and Bill Gates as examples, and argues that in addition to their hard work it was a series of fortunate events that made it possible for them to spend about 10,000 hours practicing, and that’s what truly made them successful.

Every time I look at a resume, I look for the “extra” stuff. In the case of a developer, I look for programming competitions, contributions to open source projects, anything outside of school and work. It’s amazing how few mention anything like that.

I want to see passion, and by extension, practice!

Microsoft is adopting jQuery moving forward

By ·

Just came across some really excellent news for developers. Microsoft’s ScottGu has announced that the ASP.NET team is adopting the popular jQuery library and will be shipping it with Visual Studio moving forward:

We are really excited to be able to partner with the jQuery team on this. jQuery is a fantastic library, and something we think can really benefit ASP.NET and ASP.NET AJAX developers. We are looking forward to having it work great with Visual Studio and ASP.NET, and to help bring it to an even larger set of developers.

I think this is just fantastic. I’m a fairly recent convert to jQuery, but I’m sold. I won’t build another website without it. The most immediate benefit of this announcement is the Intellisense support that Microsoft will be shipping in a few weeks as a free download.

You can read jQuery creator John Resig’s comments on the partnership here. This is an interesting kind of move for Microsoft. Instead of building their own or trying to buy a competitor like normal, they’re recognizing that jQuery is great as it is. Using jQuery will benefit Microsoft, and I’m sure it will benefit jQuery too as Microsoft can submit patches, bug reports, and other things.

Great stuff!