City aims to revitalize aging strip malls
Two aging Ritchie strip malls are getting a facelift under a new program, putting the “local” back in Edmonton’s shopping experience.
The 1950s-style malls, on opposite sides of 76th Avenue at 96th Street, were likely once one of the main places people in the neighbourhood bought groceries or had a haircut.
But such locations declined over the decades as customers increasingly drove to larger, enclosed shopping centres.
Now the city hopes to give these smaller competitors a boost with the corner-store initiative, a program aimed at turning the deterioration around by providing help for marketing and structural improvements.
“If you look back over the last 30 to 50 years, there have been some shifts in the way we shop … to car travel, the bigger shopping malls, or box stores,” senior planner Wai Tse Ramirez says.
“Now there’s a shift to localized spending as well.”
The initial focus is on sites in three neighbourhoods — Ritchie, Newton(12 1st Avenue and 54th Street), and Elmwood (83rd Avenue and 167th Street).
While there are about 110 similar locations in mature Edmonton areas, staff based their final choices on such factors as property size, building condition, and interest from residents and businesses.
Laura Cunningham-Shpeley, president of the Ritchie Community League, says improvements to their retail intersection will add to the growing district’s vibrancy.
“This will really bring neighbours together, meeting together, having coffee together,” she says.
“(It) makes a much more walkable development, and that’s what the city is lacking, in my opinion. If you’re not in the core, often you get stuck in parking lots and driving to stores.”
The program provides $5,000 worth of marketing assistance and analysis for each site.
There’s access to incentives such as the facade improvement program, which covers up to half the cost of renovating building exteriors to a maximum of $60,000, and grants encouraging owners to invest in higher-density development.
As well, the city is spending $250,000 at each location for streetscaping, which could mean benches, landscaping or other improvements.
Staff will report to council by the end of the year on how well the project went.
Psychologist Michele Pentyliuk is part of the North Land Family Counselling Group.
Its offices are moving to the southeast corner of the Ritchie intersection, using space that’s been empty for about 20 years.
She and her partners are working with other businesses in the old-fashioned mall to design a modernized exterior.
This might not have happened without the assistance of program staff guiding them through the city grant process, Pentyliuk says.
“It benefits all of us, and everybody realizes that the more the strip looks good, the more we all look good.”
Cunningham-Shpeley is particularly excited by BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk’s plan to develop another corner of the intersection where a Texaco station operated until 1987.
Zeschuk intends to build the Ritchie Market, with a brew pub and restaurant, coffee shop, bike shop and Acme Meat Market.
The city supports his plans, he says.
“I’m doing something the city generally hasn’t seen — taking an underutilized urban space and revitalizing it,” says Zeschuk, who’s looking at putting parking and a park across the street on a contaminated former Shell station property he also owns.
“Having something you’re proud of … increases the perception of the neighbourhood in terms of vibrancy and desirability.”
Coun. Tony Caterina, who represents Newton, says the strip mall in his north-side ward dates from the 1940s, housing such firms as a denturist, a tailor shop and a bowling alley.
The program will let the mall owner spruce up a property in an area that already has lots of activity, Caterina said.
He thinks the program is a good way to upgrade commercial sites that need work.
“It’s going to make a big difference to the community just in the esthetics and the types of tenants he will be able to attract,” Caterina says.
“The biggest advantage of this is allowing people to shop locally, to stay within their community and support those businesses.”