Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

• Winter returned with a dump of snow this week, but the temperatures have remained relatively warm. With spring essentially here, the City is accelerating its 2012 pothole repair program. But not before the sand trucks hit the road again!
• According to MoneySense magazine, Edmonton is the 8th best place to live in Canada.
• Neil Calhoun, a senior partner with Cushman & Wakefield, predicts that Edmonton will add a million square feet of retail space this year. That’s roughly the size of Kingsway Mall.
• Travel Alberta would like to increase tourism in the Edmonton area by $200 million by 2017, an increase of about 20%.
• West Edmonton Mall’s Deep Sea Adventure submarines, launched in 1985, will soon be dismantled. They were last in operation in June 2005.
• Last year’s Graffiti Vandalism Audit recorded 1133 incidents of graffiti in the top 20 neighbourhoods affected, a drop of 43% from 2010.
• There hasn’t been much arena news lately, but there was some discussion this week about the “pedestrian plaza”.
• Coming soon to the corner of Jasper Avenue and 100 Street: Underground Tap & Grill, a new bar that will be located underneath The Treasury.
• Downtown was a lively place on Saturday afternoon as an anti-racism rally and a white pride march clashed. EPS apparently followed the white pride group all around the city.
• Nominations are open for Avenue Edmonton’s Top 40 Under 40 for 2012. The deadline to nominate someone is May 13!
• I had no idea that Edmonton is home to a $1 billion auto dealership chain, but that’s how much revenue AutoCanada reported for 2011.
• A new housing program called Welcome Home officially launched on March 22 and will be administered by Catholic Social Services.
• The Edmonton Combative Sports Commission handed out its 35th annual awards for excellence in combative sports and outstanding achievements and commitment to those sports. Congrats to all the winners!
• Just 2332 property assessment complaints were filed last year, down significantly from the kind of numbers the City saw in 2008 and 2009. More than half of the complaints were filed online.
• Edmonton’s Bent Arrow Traditional Healing Society has launched a new welcome program for aboriginal people moving into the city. That’s important, as Edmonton will soon be home to Canada’s largest urban aboriginal population.
• Starting Sunday, about 1400 census workers will be knocking on doors throughout the city! Remember, all census workers wear photo identification, they never phone residents, and they don’t ask for names or addresses.
• Check out the updated renderings of the Walterdale Bridge Replacement:

Here are some upcoming events:

• The Blue Man Group is at the Jubilee Auditorium on Tuesday evening!
• If you get some time this week, check out the Student Design Association’s exhibit at Enterprise Square, called Sweat of Our Brow. It runs Wednesday through Saturday.
• The Oilers host the Stars on Wednesday evening, and the Kings on Friday.
• Western Canada Fashion Week kicks off on Thursday at the TransAlta Arts Barns.
• There’s a public information session on the Central LRT Station Rehabilitation taking place on Thursday at Enterprise Square.
• The Farm & Ranch Show kicks off on Thursday the Edmonton Expo Centre. And that evening is the start of the Canadian National College Finals Rodeo.
• Hard to believe there have been fifteen already – the next Social Media Breakfast Edmonton is happening on Friday morning.
• On Friday evening, Brittney is auctioning off her 50,000th tweet! The money raised will go towards the Edmonton Public Schools Foundation. Should be a great party!
• The Edmonton Rush are back in action at Rexall Place on Saturday evening as they host the Minnesota Swarm.
• Anna Marie Sewell, our city’s Poet Laureate, is the keynote speaker at the Never Ending Learning Conference on Sunday.
• Head over to the Shaw Conference Centre on Sunday for the Edmonton Collectible Toy & Comic Show.
• For more upcoming events, check out ShareEdmonton.

Rooftop Panorama by Darren

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

• The TELUS World of Science is getting a new $7 million, 16,000 square foot gallery that is expected to open in mid-September, just in time to host the acclaimed “STAR WARS Identities” exhibit beginning October 27. While the expansion is welcome news, it’s definitely no TELUS Spark.
• This weekend was the grand opening of the Arctic Shores exhibit at the Edmonton Valley Zoo. The $16.7 million project is the first of many that will transform the zoo. I did a photo tour of the construction last April – can’t wait to check out the finished product!
• Another exciting project officially opened this week – the newly renovated Commonwealth Community Recreation Centre is now open to the public. It looks amazing!
• Alberta Municipal Affairs has approved a $250,000 grant towards the Northwest LRT Concept Plan Study which will look at developing an extension from NAIT to a future transit centre in St. Albert. The $1.1 million study is expected to be completed by December.
• The new Edmonton Filmed Entertainment Fund launched this week. The profit-motivated $10 million fund will invest in film and television projects made in and around Edmonton, and is a partnership between EEDC and Los Angeles-based Kilburn Media.
• Starting tomorrow a two block section of 105 Street between 105 Avenue and 107 Avenue will be closed until November to facilitate construction of the North LRT to NAIT.
• Councillor Anderson thinks that taxpayers are in for a rough ride in the years ahead. He’s concerned that civic taxes could go up more than 50% in the next decade.
• You’ve really got to see the picture of the snow piles in this article. Last year’s was nearly 20 stories high, this year’s is much, much smaller. Bring on spring!
• Representatives from twelve Ukrainian cities were in Edmonton last week to learn about economic planning, intergovernmental cooperation, and government reform. The trip was part of FCM’s Municipal Local Economic Development program.
• According to new figures released by Statistics Canada, total employment in the Edmonton CMA has slipped by over 4000 jobs in February, bringing the unemployment rate to 5.3%.
• On the other hand, the latest Manpower Employment Outlook Survey says that 28% of employers plan to hire for the upcoming quarter while just 11% anticipated cutbacks.
• Some sad news in the local food scene: d’Lish is closing permanently. That follows the news that Kerstin’s Chocolates is also closing. For more local food news, don’t miss Sharon’s weekly food notes.
• I’m gonna have to head out to Donnan Park to check out Edmonton’s first “natural playground”. The new playground was designed by Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds and features rocks, stick, sand and dirt rather than monkey bars and plastic play structures.
• Here’s some excellent news for downtown and hopefully also for Rapid Fire Theatre – our city’s longest running improv group is moving back downtown, into the Citadel’s Zeidler Hall in September.
• If you haven’t already done so, check out Backup Box. Created by Eric Warnke and Mark Fossen, the utility helps you connect technologies like FTP and Dropbox. I love the message in the footer: Proudly made in Edmonton.

Photo by Paula Kirman

Here are some upcoming events to note:

• The next EBL Edmonton event takes place tomorrow night at Accent Lounge. The guest speaker is Ron Gilbertson, currently EEDC’s President & CEO.
• On Tuesday evening the monthly Ruby Meetup is taking place at the Computing Sciences Centre at the University of Alberta.
• The 18th DemoCamp Edmonton is taking place on Wednesday evening at the Telus Centre. Come see what Edmonton’s entrepreneurs and tech community has been up to!
• BUILDEX Edmonton is at the Shaw Conference Centre on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.
• There are two Southeast to West LRT Community Conversations taking place this week. On Tuesday, the Argyll Road to Strathearn area will be discussed at St. James School, and on Thursday the Mill Woods Town Centre to Whitemud Drive area will be discussed at the South Edmonton Alliance Church.
• Jason Kapalka, Chief Creative Officer of PopCap Games, is the next speaker in the Innovative Leaders Lecture Series. He’ll be at the U of A on Thursday afternoon to talk about his experience.
• Also Thursday afternoon is Jennifer Cockrall-King’s Food and the City event at Hardware Grill.
• The Home & Garden Show takes place at the Edmonton Expo Centre starting Thursday.
• Don’t miss this on Saturday: Bust a Move Edmonton!
• On Saturday evening, head down to Rexall Place to cheer on the Edmonton Rush as they host the Washington Stealth.

Photo by Ian McKenzie

I hope you had a safe and enjoyable St. Patrick’s Day!

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

• City Council’s annual budget and year-end expenditure reports were released on Friday. Council budgeted $1,263,865 in 2011 and actually spent $1,118,682.
• Council is considering a new bylaw that would ban smoking within 10 metres of any outdoor playground, skating rink, sports field, or spray park. Similar legislation exists elsewhere. If passed, the new bylaw could take effect as early as next month.
• Monday is the deadline for nominations for the next Historian Laureate. Ken Tingley’s two year term ends in April.
• Congratulations to FiliStix, Tres Carnales, Cake Couture, and Guru – the folks behind those organizations made Western Living Magazine’s list of the 40 Top Foodies Under 40 for 2012! Great to see Edmonton represented.
• I certainly wouldn’t be handing out any awards until the project is finished, but the City has received an Award of Merit from the Consulting Engineers of Alberta for the North LRT to NAIT project. UPDATE: To be clear, the award was for the LRT tunnel under the new EPCOR Tower, taking advantage of that building’s construction, which makes sense.
• Did you know Edmonton still had a milkman? Barry Svederus was the last milkman in Edmonton until he retired on Friday, a job he has been doing for 34 years!
• The City of Edmonton is accepting applications for the position of firefighter until March 30.
• The list of nominees for the Mayor’s Celebration of the Arts was announced this week! Should be a great event.
• Congratulations to Sam Pillar, Forrest Zeisler and the rest of the team at Jobber – they just scored a six-figure venture capital investment!
• Another year, another uneventful NHL trade deadline. Check out the analysis at OilersNation.
• Work is well underway for a new stormwater line in The Quarters. Cool photo of the giant hole crews dug – six stories deep!
• Four Edmonton schools made the Fraser Institute’s top 10 schools for 2012. You can check out the full list here.
• Police handed out 379 distracted driving tickets in February, the most since the legislation took effect in September.
• It sounds like Council will be discussing the Edmonton Stories website this week – Councillor Diotte wants to see the program shut down.
• Here are some recent business comings and goings from Bill Mah.
• In case you missed it, here’s the first part of my State of the Edmonton Twittersphere for 2011.

Big snowflakes fell in Edmonton today, but with warm temperatures ahead, it won’t last! Here you can see the Jaffer Building signage going up. You can see the finished product here.

Here are some upcoming events to note:

• The Innovative Leaders Lecture Series continues on Tuesday with TELUS CEO Darren Entwistle.
• Yelp’s Prohibition Party takes place on Wednesday at Suede. Should be a fun way to mark the one year anniversary of Yelp in Edmonton!
• March 8 is International Women’s Day, and there are a bunch of events taking place around the city to mark the occasion. The annual Key Communicators Luncheon takes place at the Sutton Place, and there’s a wine & cheese celebration at NorQuest.
• BlogWest gets underway on Thursday and runs through Saturday at the Delta Edmonton Centre Suite.
• The Seniors Association of Greater Edmonton is holding an open house on Thursday afternoon.
• The Oilers host the Canadiens on Thursday evening at Rexall Place.
• The high-flying Oil Kings will go for six wins in a row on Wednesday as they host Moose Jaw. On Saturday they host Red Deer at Rexall Place.
• The Edmonton Rush are back in action at home on Friday evening when they’ll take on Calgary!
• You can take part in the International Women’s Day March on Saturday at Tipton Park. Or, check out the Women’s Wellness Fair at the Alberta Avenue Community Centre.
• The City of Edmonton is holding a Neighbourhood Engagement Workshop all day Saturday at the Santa Maria Goretti Centre.
• For more upcoming events, check out ShareEdmonton.

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

• Winter is back! Apparently more snow fell in the last 24 hours than has fallen all season long! A parking ban has been declared – all vehicles must be removed from residential bus routes by 7 AM.
• All of that snow made illumiNITE even better though. The event featured a number of temporary light sculptures in the Alley of Light on 104 Street. Check out Stu’s blog post for more.
• If you zoom in on West Edmonton Mall using Google Maps on your Android device, you’ll now be able to see a detailed floor plan and can navigate your way through the gigantic mall. WEM is the first Canadian venue to partner with Google on supporting indoor places on Google Maps.
• There will be no Capitals baseball at Telus Field this year, as the team withdrew from the North American League this week citing the plummeting participation of other teams. So, what are we going to use Telus Field for? Here’s one idea – a 100 team slow-pitch tournament.
• Here’s a wonderful profile of everyone’s favorite LRT driver, Tim Mireault. You know, the airline pilot driver!
• Edmonton and Kamloops are finalists to host the 2015 Panamerican Junior Athletics Championships, and will face off in May to determine who wins.
• The Frequency rave party took place last weekend at the Shaw Conference Centre, the first test of Council’s recent demand that such events curb alcohol and drug abuse.
• Have you noticed your bus ride is a little full? ETS is dealing with some overcrowded routes.
• It’s amazing to me that police received 41 calls last year about over-sized vehicles causing backups at or near the High Level Bridge.
• I guess it had to happen sooner or later – Edmonton’s first homicide of 2012.
• There’s $10,000 on the table for an Edmonton film-maker! The deadline for submissions for the inaugural Edmonton Film Prize is March 30.
• I love this Edmonton pride – you can get an “e-town” baseball cap at Foosh!
• The Edmonton Eskimos reported a net profit of $473,471 in 2011 and are confident that the loss of Ricky Ray won’t hurt them financially.
• Moving slowly ahead on the southeast LRT, but how to pay for it?
• What do you think, is the Talus Dome located in the right place? I agree that it’s interesting to see how many Edmontonians are interested in debating the issue.

Though I’m sure you’ve seen it by now, the Shit Edmontonians Say video was the talk of town this week so I’ve got to include it here:

Little heavy on the hockey, but I guess that is an accurate portrayal of Edmonton!

February; out like a lion by oudzo

Here are some upcoming events:

• The inaugural First Nations Conference on Sustainable Buildings & Communities takes place at the River Cree starting Wednesday.
• Feminist Edmonton presents Feminism Week, starting March 1. Learn more here!
• The Oilers have two home games this week, on Wednesday against St. Louis and on Friday against Dallas.
• The Oil Kings also have a pair of home games, hosting Swift Current on Saturday and Saskatoon on Sunday.
• The Jam Union Art House Party & NextGen Social takes place on Thursday evening at the Artery.
• Downtown Dining Week starts March 2!
• Early heads up that there is a good old fashioned #yegtweetup scheduled for March 10!
• For more upcoming events, check out ShareEdmonton.

Here are my weekly Edmonton notes:

• Former mayor Cecil Purves didn’t hold anything back in his critique of the arena deal. “When I see a deal that is so blatantly bad for the citizens of Edmonton, and they’re giving it to a private guy who’s a billionaire, then I say to you, there’s no one in this city who’s going to back that up if they knew the facts.”
• What do you think about Edmonton making a bid to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games? We hosted back in 1978.
• The communities around Edmonton are growing quickly according to the latest census results. Leduc posted a 43% growth rate, Spruce Grove saw 33% growth, and Beaumont led the way with 48%.
• In case you missed it, here’s my post on the local aspect of the 2011 Federal Census.
• The new terminal at the Edmonton International Airport officially opened on Saturday. The new Central Tower will open later this year.
• Six non-profit public projects are receiving funding through the Community Facility Partner Capital Grants Program. Among other things, Metro Cinema is getting digital projection upgrades and the Arygll Velodrome is getting track and drainage repairs.
• Hooray for this! Councillor Iveson submitted a formal inquiry to look at the possibility of an LRT stop between Southgate and Century Park.
• ETS is testing a prototype coins-only counting farebox on four buses this week.
• Employment in the Edmonton CMA slipped last month by 3500 jobs, as the unemployment rate rose from 4.9% to 5.0%.
• Edmonton has reclaimed the prize of Sirens for Life champion in the 10th annual inter-city blood donor challenge.
• The province intends to collect an extra $120 million from education taxes this year, which could boost the total average Edmonton property tax bill by 7.2%. On the other hand, the City is in line to received a $2 million MSI increase and more funding for policing.
• The Grierson Hill Bridge will be completely closed starting Saturday and will not reopen until the fall when a new bridge is built.
• I know you’ve all been waiting for this news: Walmart Canada plans to add five stores to Edmonton this year.

Such a cool shot of the Bay/Enterprise Square LRT Station by Alison Poole:

Here are some upcoming events:

• The next round of public consultation workshops for the City Centre Redevelopment takes place this week, with opportunities on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
• Avenue Edmonton’s 2012 Design Competition winner will be awarded on Thursday.
• This year’s edition of the popular Silver Skate Festival starts on Friday, and runs through Monday.
• I’m really looking forward to Latitude 53’s 1st Annual Parka Patio Party on Saturday!
• Monday is Family Day, which means the end of Metropolis.
• The Oilers have three games at home this week: Toronto on Wednesday, Colorado on Friday, and Vancouver on Sunday.
• For more upcoming events, check out ShareEdmonton.