Centre for Cities and Communities releases Edmonton’s first downtown streetfront retail report

To get a pulse check on a city’s overall economic and social health, experts say to head downtown.

According to Heather Thomson, director of the University of Alberta’s Centre for Cities and Communities (CCC), small streetfront retail interactions downtown, in particular, can have a big impact on a city’s overall character and vibrancy. 

“It’s all about optics,” says Thomson. “When you’re walking downtown and see one empty window after another, you’re not compelled to stick around and socialize — let alone spend money. We cannot overlook the importance of streetfront retail.”

After a decade of changes in consumer behaviour, technology advancements and lingering COVID-19 impacts, Thomson and her team of researchers fromCCC set out to provide Edmonton business owners, community stakeholders and city planners with a snapshot of the city’s streetfront retail landscape in the downtown core. 

However, she quickly learned the key data required for the report — storefront retail occupancy rates — did not exist in Edmonton. 

“I was frustrated. It’s a huge pillar of our economy and a tool to support our business owners downtown,” says Thomson. “We decided then to just do it ourselves.”

With financial support from the City of Edmonton’s Downtown Vibrancy Fund, 20 CCC researchers combed the streets of Edmonton’s downtown Business Improvement Area for over 200 hours this past May, manually counting the number of vacant storefronts on tablets.  

In mid-October, their research and analysis culminated in the city’s first downtown streetfront retail report.

The new report provides a baseline for yearly streetfront retail vacancy reporting in Edmonton and sheds light on the types of retail businesses thriving under the current economic conditions, as well as those requiring more support, using academic insights and applied research, evidence from other cities and local success stories. 

It also offers revitalization strategies aimed at sparking conversations among city builders to collaborate, innovate and adapt to the current state of downtown Edmonton.

Bleak realities, bright solutions 

A particular statistic immediately jumps off the first page of the report, reaffirming many grim outlooks on Edmonton’s city centre: one-third of downtown streetfront retail spaces are vacant. 

While the results did not come as a surprise to Thomson and others, she cautions comparing the data to other Canadian cities. 

“Nobody was shocked — it confirmed many of our assumptions,” she says. “However, it’s important to note the size of Edmonton’s downtown. When we’re comparing it to other cities, in many cases, we have double the amount of square kilometres. On the other hand, our size presents a lot of opportunities too.”

The report identifies six opportunities or “things we can do now” to inspire conversations about innovation downtown. Of the six strategies, Thomson identifies two providing the biggest payoff. 

First, more people need to live downtown. 

“The magic solution for everything is to just have more people living downtown,” she says. “It’s the case for vibrancy, safety, retail… for everything. The question now is what is that critical mass number we need? Is it 10,000 people? Is it 50,000 people?”

She adds that working professionals alone are not enough to sustain downtown health. 

“We learned from the pandemic that diversity is key,” she says. “An around-the-clock community with people from different backgrounds and income levels will make us a healthier, social and economically stable city.” 

The second action Thomson identifies as reaping big rewards is beautification, from bold strategies like eye-catching murals and greenspace investments to essentials like maintained sidewalks and ample trash cans. 

According to the report, for every $1 invested publicly in beautification initiatives, an additional $3 is generated by the private sector. 

“It’s like the broken window theory but reversed,” she says. “Aesthetics play a huge role in consumer confidence. They’re more inclined to spend time and money in spaces that we take care of and invest in.”

The future of the report 

Thomson hopes this is the first of many annual reports conducted by the CCC.

“This report is just the first step — it’s a baseline,” she says. “We’d like to capture annual data so we can monitor year-over-year trends and evaluate if downtown strategies are working.”

She also aspires to expand the scope of the research to include financial and digital tracking data. 

“From the get-go, I wanted financial data but it was too expensive. I’m eager to know what postal codes spend the most amount of money and time downtown,” she says. “It would also be great to capture digital location tracking to determine the top foot traffic times and the sales per square foot of different areas downtown.”

Additional funding will be needed to continue the CCC’s streetfront retail vacancy research but Thomson says the report has already garnered positive feedback from across the city building community.

“This whole process has shown us how much critical data our stakeholders were missing about downtown,” she says. “We’re proud to have helped bridge that gap.”