changingedmonton-blog

[changingedmonton-blog]

The urban form of 7-11 in Edmonton.

If you’re walking through the intersection of 109 Street and 102 Avenue at the western edge of Downtown, you’ll notice on the northeast corner a couple of peculiar looking buildings. They are the hosts to three businesses, including 7-11, a pizza and donair shop, and a liquor store.

In 2001, a developer looked at this property and saw an opportunity to develop a commercial strip mall. In his mind, was a typical suburban style convenience strip mall. The building hugging the north of the site, while parking filled the south. It made sense, especially in a business sense. Only the northbound traffic could access the site off of 109 Street. Imagine heading home, and ahead of you, you see the 7-11. Quickly, you pull in, park, pick up your goods, and exit back onto 109 Street. 

The application was made. But after that, all changed. At some point, the plan was altered, most likely after input from the City Planning Department. The struggle for urban vs suburban site layouts began. Nobody will really know what happened. But after the permit was issued, everything was different. The building now stood on the south of the property, with parking hidden behind it on the north part of the lot. Now, the driver would have to go past the building, into the rear parking, and then back out. 

The urban form had won. The concept was simple. Bring the building to the propertly line nearest to the sidewalks. Put all the windows there as well, and hide the parking behind. The idea was simple, make the building more attractive to pedestrians and cyclists, and don’t worry about the vehicles. Sure, vehicles could still get in there, but now pedestrians were the focus. The loss for the developer was the high visibility of the 7-11 building in the back, and potentially a large street oriented pylon sign. Replaced with signage affixed to the building, and rear parking.

So here we are 15 years later. How has this urban 7-11 fared. Well, I suppose you have to see some success in the fact that all three commercial bays have been more or less continuously occupied. So clearly, business can thrive. The location is ideal for both pedestrians and motorists (vehicles can still get in there). And even though a bike lane is now there, it seems to be doing just fine. 

But there have been some problems. And these are problems City Planners need to learn from. First off, despite the street frontage, all the businesses turned their backs on the street. All three business have main entrances off the rear parking. Clearly, nobody told these businesses that pedestrians were to be their main customers. As such, all those beautiful windows became nothing more than frosted covering. Only 7-11 bothered keeping one entrance at the corner, and due to safety, that is often closed off. 

Perhaps this was the sell off to get the urban form. Please, give us an urban form, and we’ll let you put your entrances on the vehicular side. Kind of defeats the point though. So now, pedestrians have to walk around to the north side of the building. Dont’ get me wrong, they’re certainly not the only building guilty of this. Their neighbour to the south did this too in the Canterra Square complex. And the Brewery District as well.

Edmonton seems to be afraid to force entrances to the sidewalk.

Secondly, the small little walkway running between the building fulfills no point. Planners speak of connectivity. But this walkway connects to a parking lot. Furthermore, it screams out “creepy” for a pedestrian. There doesn’t seem to be a good reason to have it in there. I’m guessing city planning asked for it. 

If were are going to force urban form development on developers, we need to follow through with a some basic concepts.

1. Main Doors at the sidewalk (no exception). 

2. Windows to have complete visibility to the inside. Otherwise this is just a fancy wall.

3. Inner walkways to parking lots serve no purpose. Get rid of them.

At the end of the day, this is a prime lot for redevelopment to a tower, and at that point, if 7-11 stays, they’ll have no choice but to respect pedestrians.

But in the meantime, planners need to stop bargaining for these sites. Give us urban form and we’ll give you rear doors. No dice. Don’t be afraid to say no!!