The ambition of ICE District Phase 1 was to firmly integrate Rogers Place into downtown Edmonton. By placing the arena front door in a new urban plaza, and then lining that plaza on all sides with commercial, office, and residential above, Phase 1 seamlessly connects Rogers Place into both the existing central business district and the growing residential and commercial warehouse district.

ICE District Phase 2 is to integrate the arena into the educational district to the west, the residential neighbourhoods to the north,and the commercial district to the east of the arena. Given the current isolated state of both the housing and commercial stock north of the arena, Phase 2 is in many ways even more ambitious than Phase 1.

Phase 2 takes a similar strategy to Phase 1 in creating value and organizing development. Phase 2 will be anchored by creating a large park or back yard to the arena, much like the plaza to the south creates the front yard. But unlike the hard, urban plaza of Phase 1, this park will be a natural and green park, and will combine the existing city MacEwan LRT Park and approximately 1 acre of private development land for a total park area of almost 80,000 square feet. In addition, the Park will include a large community anchor building for the likes of community markets, a restaurant, and community offices. Like the plaza in Phase 1, it is this park that will serve as an anchor and to create value for over 4 million square feet of surrounding commercial development.

The district’s flavour will be that of an inner city residential neighbourhood in both scale and proportion compared to its more central business district Phase 1 neighbour. When built out, Phase 2 will have approximately 3,000 residences, 800,000 square feet of office, over 200,000 square feet of retail, and at least one hotel, all housed in 12 towers and one historic building. Included will be almost 4,000 parking stalls, mostly below grade.

When completed, Phase 2 itself will house over 4,500 residents, with restaurants, retail and office space, all anchored by a LRT station, a large park and community building. In providing a home for approximately one in five downtown residents, ICE District Phase 2 will form a new nexus of residential development and act as a catalyst for the continuing regeneration of Central McDougall, McCauley, Boyle, and Riverdale communities.

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Scope of work

Phase 2 will complete the development vision surrounding Rogers Place and occupy over 13 acres of land directly north and east of the arena. Our team led the master planning of Phase 2 in two stages. Initially the developer had very little clarity on a development strategy, other than a desire to maximize overall value.

The first stage involved working very closely with the developer on a series of high level test fits for very different program combinations in scale and typology. SA+D looked at options ranging from expanded institutional facilities and student housing for proximate downtown universities, to large scale sports facilities seen to be synergistic with Rogers Place. Through these test fits and concurrent potential partnership conversations, ownership narrowed down a development strategy that focused on creating a high density residential district with limited supporting office and commercial.

SA+D then entered the second stage of our efforts which broadly focused on urban design and the testing of various residential and commercial densities. We first developed the larger urban strategy of a new park that would act as the new community’s “backyard” and serve to organize the placement of both commercial and residential densities. In effect, creating higher value proximate to the new park.

Our scope in this phase included working with other consultancy, preparing documentation for early stage engagement with the municipal authority, defining development potential, supporting the rezoning process, creating renders and visualizations, and preparing documentation for public engagements.