Edmonton's 1st new office tower in many yrs - poll

[CMD UW]

FYI - this tower was never contemplated to be thee premier AA-class office building in Edmonton. It is being marketed as condominiums as an alternative to paying higher rates. This tower is no different than Genco Place and numerous others that have sprouted up in downtown Calgary or the Beltline over the past two years.

[Boris2k7]

Originally Posted by CMD UW

FYI - this tower was never contemplated to be thee premier AA-class office building in Edmonton. It is being marketed as condominiums as an alternative to paying higher rates. This tower is no different than Genco Place and numerous others that have sprouted up in downtown Calgary or the Beltline over the past two years.

Except that Genco looks better...

IMO, the scale and design of the podium is okay, though I dislike the windows on the third storey.

The red needs to go, it doesn't work with the tower above.

With those corner bits as they are, the massing just looks plain goofy.

[ctown.myth]

Originally Posted by CMD UW

FYI - this tower was never contemplated to be thee premier AA-class office building in Edmonton. It is being marketed as condominiums as an alternative to paying higher rates. This tower is no different than Genco Place and numerous others that have sprouted up in downtown Calgary or the Beltline over the past two years.

That's just the thing - a city like Edmonton deserves to have a office tower that's five times better than that. It's that prospect that saddens me.

[Wooster]

Without all of the brick, it would be quite good. Just a simple cylindrical building.

[Hardhatdan]

Yea, it isn't great and its not even good.
Those red corners look ridiculous.
If they are doing office condos, why not do another 15-20 floors of residential condos on top?

15 Floors makes no sense to me at this location.

I'm really disappointed.

[Riise]

I think this building has some real potential and all it needs is a couple of modifications. Mainly, getting rid of the red corner parts of the tower and going with the oval look, redoing the base in correspondence with the new oval outlook and sans-brick style, as well as, forgive me for saying this Edmonton folk, going with some additional height. It's a diamond in the rough...

[Hootch]

Yikes!

Lose the red shit!

Are they trying to help Edmonton get the award for "least aesthetically-pleasing architecture in North America"?

No use sugar-coating it; it's FUG. Not too mention 20 floors too short. I am really disappointed! And ashamed!

Before I overreact I gotta tell myself this is just the first drawing in what will hopefully be many different concepts. Right?

Gross. We're still Discountville, just with higher prices. And this POS comes out right after Calgary released LaCaille; it really puts us to shame!

[CMD UW]

Originally Posted by ctown.myth

That's just the thing - a city like Edmonton deserves to have a office tower that's five times better than that. It's that prospect that saddens me.

Couldn't agree with you more, but that title is going to come from other office developers ~ I'm looking at Oxford, Dundee, Procura's towers.

FYI - brick has to be part of the podium due to the zoning regulations.

[Jasper and one o nin]

I dont mind it to be quite honest. From what I see in the picture, I really dont mind it. At this point we dont know what the relationship to the street will be, what kind of uses will be on the main floor, what kind of material (or at least very much) it will be. But as for the architectural form, I dont mind it for a 15 storey building.

[CMD UW]

Originally Posted by Hardhatdan

Yea, it isn't great and its not even good.
Those red corners look ridiculous.
If they are doing office condos, why not do another 15-20 floors of residential condos on top?

15 Floors makes no sense to me at this location.

I'm really disappointed.

Why, because the site is small and going deeper to accommodate the u/g parking requirements doesn't make economic sense. Unless you want to start going with above-ground parking, then it could work.

[christopherj]

Originally Posted by josh white

Without all of the brick, it would be quite good. Just a simple cylindrical building.

Agreed. I don't even mind the brick podium (given where it is, and its requirements) - but the brick in the corners is awful.

[Hardhatdan]

Originally Posted by CMD UW

Why, because the site is small and going deeper to accommodate the u/g parking requirements doesn't make economic sense. Unless you want to start going with above-ground parking, then it could work.

Add 2 level u/g parking and fill the rest with +/- 700 sq ft bachelor condos with no parking.

No one else near 104 is going to offer that.

It can be done.

[Kevin_foster]

This has to be the worst proposal I've seen in Edmonton to date. I was shocked when I saw a building like Panache being built in our core; now I feel like I went on an all night bender last night as I'll be dry heaving all day today after seeing this..

What a letdown. There is nothing they could do to improve this design - except maybe light the paper it was drawn on, on fire, stomp on it, and give the idea to some other developer.

Hello 1980!!! Nice to see you again! What's that, you never left?? Must've been lingering in the shadows all this time!

We want to improve our core by making it a center for inspiration, sustainability and make landmarks to showcase our city in prosperous times.

One only needs to look south to see THIS


And realize how disappointing this tower is.

Please god don't let it be built.

EDIT: OMG someone actually had the balls to release this to the media!! Haha

Not only does the tower portion itself resemble a bad 1980's Cartoon; it appears to have been designed with total randomness in mind - the colors, the podium, the square corners, the punched windows, ... god only knows what materials will be used. God help us all if they dare to use stucco :|. It honestly looks like the @b0rtion we call ARLINGTON with the appearance of curves.

Don't take the candy, it's poison!! ~~~ NOOOOO

[newfangled]

Might as well throw these in this thread too:

[CMD UW]

Originally Posted by Hardhatdan

Add 2 level u/g parking and fill the rest with +/- 700 sq ft bachelor condos with no parking.

No one else near 104 is going to offer that.

It can be done.

Put up the money and you can do what you want. Dollars to dimes the proforma and margins prove otherwise.

[Arch26]

god... the whole "circle-inside-a-square" thing never works. And it's such a kitschy pointless thing to do anyway. Not convinced. Edmonton can do soooooo much better than this garbage. It's pathetic. Who's the architect/developer on this anyway? Maybe it was already mentioned but I didn't see it on first skim.

[Hardhatdan]

Originally Posted by CMD UW

Put up the money and you can do what you want. Dollars to dimes the proforma and margins prove otherwise.

I wish I could, you know that.

The box around the circle has to be there, no one wants to lose that much floor plate. (Manulife doesn't count its floor plates are already huge.)

[Arch26]

Originally Posted by Hardhatdan

The box around the circle has to be there, no one wants to lose that much floor plate. (Manulife doesn't count its floor plates are already huge.)

Then maybe it should just be a well-designed box. Or maybe a taller circle. Anyway, to me it doesn't look like a box-around-a-circle anyway. It looks like a circle with four ugly red triangles tacked on to it.

[Hardhatdan]

Originally Posted by Arch26

Then maybe it should just be a well-designed box. Or maybe a taller circle. Anyway, to me it doesn't look like a box-around-a-circle anyway. It looks like a circle with four ugly red triangles tacked on to it.

I agree with you. I'm just stating the reason they are there, if they can lose that would be spectacular, but that would lower the plate size, in usable space, by probably 500 to 1000 sq ft and in a 9000 sq ft plate that is substantial.

[whyteknight]

Some renderings i just whipped up:





...and if i had my way with it: