A ground-breaking ceremony was held on Friday morning for a new student housing project in Edmonton’s downtown core. Four six-storey residential buildings will go up on the corner of 103 Avenue and 106 Street in two phases while incorporating the historic Massey Ferguson building into the design. “That’s a very unique aspect to the project,” said Tim McLennan, CEO of Faction Projects Inc. He said it is something they’d been planning from the beginning. “The facade itself will be stabilized from demolition of the rest of the building and then incorporated into the facade, on the south face,” said McLennan. “The key when you’re doing facade recapture basically is the structural component of it as you have to create an internal structural system in order to stabilize the facade while it creates for the rest of the building to be built around it, and then re-incorporated into the structure,” he added. The first phase of the project will have 351 student housing beds. By the time all four buildings are complete, there will be 696. “The building itself is comprised of individual studio units, and then it has amenity space, so we have games rooms, movie rooms, gym, things like that, and study rooms as amenities for the students,” said McLennan. “It provides an affordable housing option directly next to their school, potentially, which can reduce transportation costs and time,” said Councillor Anne Stevenson. “Just having that number of people in the downtown also helps vibrancy, supports local businesses and helps the whole core feel safer and more vibrant,” she added. Stevenson acknowledged the challenges in the city’s core and said the pandemic highlighted a need to have more residential units. The project is part of the city’s student housing incentive and council’s efforts to see vacant property downtown developed.
