The Edmonton Project may just be the best idea of the year

Plans for a great new city attraction are shaping up — and at least one will get built

The best idea of the year in Edmonton? My vote goes to The Edmonton Project, a competition that seeks not only to brainstorm visions for popular new attractions for Edmonton, but is dead set on actually building one of them.

If all goes well with the project, we could have a fantastic new attraction built in Edmonton in a few years, anything from a gondola running from Old Strathcona to downtown to a ferris wheel restaurant, where customers get a view of the river valley while dining on meals from various food trucks.

There are 10 finalists and the winning entry will be picked at a Dragon’s Den-like public hearing March 6.

All this sounds a bit pie-inthe-sky, so I went to organizer Jeffrey Hansen-Carlson, a senior manager with EllisDon construction, to explain the project.

The idea came from a chat in February 2017 between two friends, Hansen-Carlson and Aziz Bootwala of Kasian Architecture, about how to best celebrate the city. As Hansen-Carlson puts it: “Sometimes you just have a glass of wine and something pops into your head and it keeps you up at night and every morning you wake up thinking of it and you get to a place where you have to try.”

Hansen-Carlson reached out to business peers and enlisted five corporate partners: EllisDon, BDO, ATB, Kasian Architecture and zag creative. The idea was an easy sell, Hansen-Carlson says. “It wasn’t this cumbersome, complicated design competition. It was: ‘You got an awesome idea, there are no rules, we are here to do it for you, let’s go for it.’”

In the end, 300 project applicants entered the contest, with 67 making the shortlist. A panel of local five judges (businessman Ayaz Bhanji, media consultant Carrie Doll, radio host Ryan Jespersen, Royal Alex Foundation board member Krista Ference and Cheryll Watson, a vice-president at Edmonton Economic Development Corp.) then picked the 10 finalists.

Project leaders are meeting with the finalists to refine and cost out their ideas. Some finalists are being encouraged to think even bigger, others are being told to scale back.

“That way they really strengthen their pitch so they’re not standing in front of this room of people and it’s all just unicorns and rainbows,” Hansen-Carlson says.

Sculptor Slavo Cech is one of the finalists with his idea for using stacked Imax projectors to screen gorgeous and interesting images of Edmonton onto a downtown building, livening up the night scene. Cech thinks Chancery Hall on Winston Churchill Square might be an excellent screen for projection.

This same thing has been done in Montreal and other cities, Cech says: “My idea is almost like Instagram on steroids. There’s so many beautiful images on Instagram and Twitter with the #yeg hashtag. Why can’t we ... have a living photo album of Edmonton’s every day life?”

Another finalist, Gary and Amber Poliquin, who run an Edmonton tour company, envision an eight-car gondola, costing $25 million to $50 million, running 3.2 km from Old Strathcona to the old Epcor power plant, then up to downtown.

“LRT, or if you try to build a street car, it’s going to be hundreds of millions,” Gary Poliquin says. “Basically, you want to make it easy as possible for locals as well as tourists. The easier you make it, the more use it will get. That’s why we’re trying to keep it simple. Three stations. Great views. Very efficient so it’s quick.”

After the panel picks a winner, the project leaders will set to work to get it built. “We will quickly mobilize to do it,” Hansen-Carlson says.

“We have a financial plan.” The winning project is to be built with corporate support, government grants and a public fundraising campaign.

One interesting feature is how many of the finalists have to do with bringing more activity to the river valley, says HansenCarlson.

“Seventy-five per cent of the ideas submitted were about developing the river valley and progressing in innovative ways that bring people closer to the river beyond the incredible trail network we have,” he says. “That’s a challenging discussion. Edmontonians have a very funny relationship with the river valley, but we really cracked that discussion open here with the top 10 ideas.”

While they’re only picking one project to build, more than one might be eventually built.

“This was more of a brainstorming session for Edmonton than it was an idea competition where one idea wins,” HansenCarlson says.

“The more ideas that get out there and excite people and mobilize people and people try to do those ideas, the better Edmonton is.”