Century Park: 100 years in the making?
Permit delays hold up planned urban village, developer says
Seven years after Heritage Mall was demolished to make way for a lake-centred urban village in south Edmonton, most activity at the site happens weekday mornings when 1,000 drivers park their cars before hopping on the LRT.
But the popular Century Park park-and-ride could be stalling the development of the long-awaited, highly anticipated residential development.
ProCura Real Estate Services, which owns the Century Park site, wants to move the surface parking lot to 111th Street and 29th Avenue from its current location next to the LRT station.
City council approved rezoning for the move last September, but the company has not received a development permit to build the structures needed for a new surface level lot.
This is delaying development of the entire 17-hectare site, said ProCura CEO George Schluessel.
“Our hands are tied right now ... The land is basically frozen right now,” he said Thursday.
Once the parking lot is moved, it would open the bottom eight hectares of the site, where four buildings now stand.
“I’m just frustrated because at the higher orders of the city, there’s a willingness, with everyone wanting to see things happening, and we want to see things happening,” Schluessel said.
“But it starts with getting rid of the log jam. And I think they enjoy having this (parking lot) right by the LRT station, more so than developing Century Park.”
The city signed a 10-year lease with ProCura to operate a park-and-ride on the site. Five years remain.
Ward 10 Coun. Michael Walters said the permit is coming.
“We know our park-andride will not exist, as it currently is, at Century Park forever and this is what we’re coming to terms with,” he said, adding that part of the negotiations have included the need to “protect our (park-and-ride) customers’ interests as well.”
Century Park was planned in 2004 as a Vancouver-style development with 21 buildings, including glass towers and a private lake. At the time, it was to be the largest infill project of its kind in Edmonton.
Almost 100 people lined up overnight in 2006 to buy spots in the first building. The 131 available units sold out in six hours.
But two years later, the real estate market crashed and construction stopped after the completion of the first four buildings and the parkade structure for the first tower. A city-run parkand-ride facility with almost 1,200 stalls, most of them free, takes up almost a quarter of the site.
ProCura bought out its Vancouver-based partners in 2011. It changed the design plans, with the idea to construct more mid-rise buildings focused on a pedestrian-friendly retail street running east from the LRT station. The new plan would not change the density, with 2,500 units in total.
Walters said the city “has to do everything we can as a city to facilitate the full buildout of the site.” But Schluessel said the re-development can’t happen with the bottom of the site taken up by parking. When asked if the site would still be developed into a mixed-use, urban village, he said: “That’s the plan,” but delays force him to focus on other things.
A park-and-ride facility is planned for Ellerslie Road and 127th Street once the Century Park facility closes.