Edmonton’s downtown really sucks. It’s just not that exciting down here after work. If I hit up the gym after work, by the time I leave downtown at 6:30pm, the streets are abandoned. There is not much reason to stick around after work. This week, Edmonton City Council approved funding to build a new sports entertainment complex downtown. Whether or not you love the funding model or completely hate it and disagree with the decision, this is something that will make downtown way cooler. Let’s say you’re going to check out a Justin Bieber concert (SQUEEEE!!! BIEBER!!!) and you want to have a nice dinner by the arena beforehand. You can avoid the pre-show traffic and bustle of people, sit down, relax and ready yourself for the epic show about to come, right? Wrong. Unless you want to eat a Diesel Ultra-Lounge (you don’t), a Fat Franks hotdog cart (I kind of do, but it’s cold out today), or the crappy concession at Rexall Place (ummmm, popcorn and pretzels).
A MAGICAL PLACE
My office is right on Jasper Ave in the heart of downtown Edmonton. There’s lots of great restaurants down here, but they basically live off the corporate lunch time crowd. These places are abandoned on a Friday night. If the arena was downtown and there were events happening 300 nights a year (like at Rexall), BAM! Those restaurants are busy again. I would love to finish work, hit up Doan’s Vietnamese restaurant, stop at City Center and buy some flowers, and then walk a couple blocks and throw said flowers on the stage for little Justin Bieber. In five years, that might be a possibility.
THAT’S A BIG SPACESHIP
The picture above of a giant white spaceship is the latest concept drawing for Rexall Part Deux. It looks kind of cool I guess, but I think the design could use a bit of work. We have 4 big industries in Alberta, one of the most important being forestry (along with oil and gas, agriculture and tourism). The idea of having a downtown sports entertainment complex complete with hotels, restaurants, casinos and a university residence is that we will attract TOURISTS to the heart of Edmonton which will increase the amount of money we make as a city. But we have the opportunity to build something that really epitomizes Alberta’s forest economy.
BUILD IT GREEN
The picture above shows an award winning structure made out of mostly wood and glass. Wood structures are great for a few reasons:
1) It’s a renewable resource and environmentally friendly to use
2) It looks sweet
3) It’s cheaper
So why isn’t wood used to build more giant buildings? It’s structurally sound, it looks way cooler than steel and concrete, it’s basically earthquake resistant and it’s more environmentally friendly than other materials. I think the biggest reason is because it’s DIFFERENT than what we’ve done in the past, and people are resistant to change. There’s also weird building codes created ages ago that don’t make any sense and need to be changed because of some of the new technology we use to make wood fire resistant, and stronger than it’s ever been.
Next week are the Prairie Wood Design Awards honoring people who build cool looking environmentally friendly structures out of wood. The architects and engineers doing these things are seen as “cutting edge”, when really, they’re using one of the first building materials man ever used to build anything… wood. Why would we build a gross alien spaceship like building out of steel and concrete when we could build an environmentally friendly building out of trees that come from Alberta? What do you think looks better? Vancouver’s Olympic Oval built out of pine beetle killed wood? Or the mess of steel that’s the roof of Rexall Place? We can build a zero carbon emission arena out of wood that’s going to be the center of Edmonton for the next 30 years and look awesome. Don’t screw it up architects. If I see one more glass building with metallic accents I’m gonna snap. I want to see all the Oilers Stanley cup banners hung on wooden rafters.
