A new year, and a newly proposed zone for downtown. A few weeks ago, right before the lazy days of Christmas, we brought you a bit of a rundown on new zones Council approved for downtown.

Well, now they want to add another one in to the mix: the Arena and Entertainment District, for the sport where the Baccarat Casino and parking lots now sit. Yesterday, the administration released their report on the proposed district – they’re behind the plan.

You can see the whole presentation on the proposed zone her.. But, seeing as there is going to be a public hearing on the whole thing Jan. 18th, we at the Charrette thought you might like a bit of a summary of the new zone.
View Rezoning Downtown in a larger map

Also, we added it to Redrawing Downtown map

The Arena and Entertainment District (AED)

Purpose of the district:
Well, obviously, the downtown arena would go here. Aside from that, the area would allow for bars, restaurants and hotels. There’s also some hope for institutional and residential developments at all. The city says they aim to make it pedestrian-friendly with striking architecture.

What’s there now:
Gravel as far as the eye can see. Okay, well, almost. The casino and surface parking lots.

What would be allowed there:
A ton of different uses: everything from broadcast studios to convenience stores, liquor stores and churches. But the main plan is for retail and entertainment business, along with some residential.

The buildings:
The floor area ratio (FAR) for this zone is 12.0. (That means when you add up all floorspace in a building, on all the different floors, it can’t be more than 12x the size of the lot the building is on. ) That FAR is on the higher end – most of the other districts downtown have a FAR of 8.0.

Hotels in every part downtown get a bit of a boost – they get to tack on an additional 4.0 to their FAR.

Buildings can also be taller in the AED: 180 metres or 60 storeys. Of course, they still have to abide by the height restrictions put on by the City Centre Airport, but look for that to change when the airport is closed down. 180m is pretty tall: right now, the tallest allowed in the downtown zones are 150 metres. (Unless Council gives you super-special permission, aka a Direct Control Zone.)

Exemptions and restrictions:

The new zone bylaw has a lot of special rules and restrictions that differ from other parts of the city. I’d recommend you look through the whole thing, but here are some highlights.

Parking:
The bylaw allows developers to apply to lower the minimum parking spaces required to put up a new building. That’s if they can show that there’s enough shared parking around that they don’t need all those spaces. And if there’s one thing that area of the city doesn’t need, it’s a lot more empty pavement.

Pedestrian Interaction:
A lot of the report talks about how they want this to be a walkable, pedestrian-shopper friendly district. So a lot of the rules focus on that: requiring a certain amount of ground-floor space on the street for shops, services and restaurants. (In some cases, like on 104th and 101st, that will 60% of the ground floor will have to be retail/services.)

There’s also the promise of street furniture, plus encouragement for businesses to use innovative lighting in the district (although not much int he way of specifics.)

Signage:
There also seems to be a push to get signage approved so that it fits better with the character of the area.

Speaking of signs, those annoying video-screen advertisements will be allowed. But people will also be able to project images on to the sides of buildings, as well as “environmental effects.” (Using water and light.)

Like I said, that’s just a tastes of some of the special rules for the district. All of them are in the bylaw, which, again, is found here.

And remember, the public hearing for the zone is on Jan. 18th – if you have concerns/questions/praise/random thoughts, you should get out there and be heard. We’ll see you there!

Update: This post originally said the Edmonton Design Committee did not support the new zone. That was wrong – as Channing points out in the comments, it has been reviewed by EDC twice. It was rejected once, but then supported with consideration the second time.

Our bad for that, and thanks to Channing for pointing out the error.