Housing starts are up, including apartments. Businesses are opening downtown. Target has a 21,000-square-foot expansion planned for St. Albert Centre.
It’s all positive news for St. Albert.
In the first six months of this year 118 apartment units were started compared to 106 single-family homes. During the same period in 2011 there were zero apartments and 81 homes.
As much as St. Albert builders – and buyers – prefer the big, expensive, single-family homes, it is the more affordable apartments that are needed if the city is ever going to find a way to keep the young employed adults here.
Judging by the full buses heading out every morning to the University of Alberta, NAIT and Grant MacEwan, most St. Albert post-secondary students live at home. When they’re graduates and out in the work force at their first jobs, most can’t afford St. Albert’s pricey houses. They need more affordable living places –apartments or semi-detached units they can rent until they figure out where their careers are headed and until they have enough money to buy a house.
So it’s a positive to see some apartment units being built here. The key is to see that develop into a trend until we have enough affordable housing to meet the demand.
The city’s recently completed satisfaction survey showed only four per cent of residents rent their residences. The reason is obvious – there’s not much to rent in St. Albert.
One of the other major problems in trying to keep young employed adults in St. Albert is giving them reasons to stay. That’s where the new downtown openings of trendy cafes, wine bars and businesses that appear to cater to a younger demographic are important.
It will be particularly important if, and it’s a big if, they can get people into the downtown core for more than the Saturday morning farmers’ market.
It is time those downtown business owners united and came up with some creative ideas to lure people – not just the younger demographic – to their stores. For example, why don't they get together and offer a Friday or Saturday evening taste and tour. Think about it, the Taste of Edmonton is a huge success because it allows people to wander the street and sample a wide variety of foods, wine and beer.
Those downtown St. Albert businesses could do the same on a smaller scale. Get all the downtown cafes, lounges, wine bars and restaurants to offer samples of their products and invite those outlets not in the downtown area to come on down and set up temporary stands along the street.
It just might give those young adults who flock by the hundreds into Edmonton every night a reason to stay here for one night at least. And it would give the older residents a reason to walk downtown and relax for a couple of hours. All those runners and bikers along the Red Willow Trail a reason to make a sharp turn and take a break.
And hey, maybe that could inspire Amacon to actually go ahead with its planned $450-million Grandin mall redevelopment, bringing much needed commercial development and living spaces to the downtown area – not that we need high-rise towers, mind you.
And guess what? Give the young adults affordable places to live, a reason to spend some time and money downtown and who knows? Maybe when they’ve established their careers and are earning good salaries, they’ll just end up buying their houses in St. Albert and staying home.
