Fort Road Old Town Redevelopment

  
The Fort Road Old Town Master Plan is a City-led initiative to create a new transit-oriented urban village next to the Belvedere LRT station as a means to revitalize a historically vibrant business community. The urban village will be a place where retail businesses thrive, opportunities for affordable housing and townhouse living are created, and residents and visitors are provided options to walk and ride transit in order to carry out their daily activities.

The Fort Road Old Town Master Plan, as approved by City Council on November 26, 2002, is comprised of two distinct yet intricately connected projects: a transportation project and a land redevelopment project. The transportation component will see Fort Road widened from four to six lanes, creation of a landscaped median, and the installation of improved streetscape features. These improvements are a component of the City’s longstanding program to widen Fort Road between Yellowhead Trail and 137 Avenue.

The land redevelopment project will seize upon the opportunity made possible by the transportation project to create an urban village on the lands between the Fort Road Old Town area and the LRT tracks. Mixed-use development will be created along the southeast side of Fort Road with commercial and retail uses at street level and residential housing above. A mixture of medium and high-density residential housing and a high-quality pedestrian environment will bring up to 1,500 new residents into a new transit-oriented community.

The Fort Road Old Town Master Plan Implementation Report was approved by City Council on September 23, 2003.  The City of Edmonton will act as the primary developer due to its role as major landowner in the area. This will allow the City to ensure the high quality design needed to revitalize the Fort Road business area.

The Fort Road Old Town Master Plan provides a critical opportunity to achieve a number of inter-related City strategic goals and objectives such as sustainable development, affordable housing initiatives, increased LRT ridership, transit-oriented development centered on LRT stations, and intensification of current urban form. This project will act as a catalyst for continued redevelopment of the Fort Road Old Town and other communities in northeast Edmonton by demonstrating the City’s commitment to the area’s revitalization. It will also be a pilot project for future transit-oriented development at other at-grade LRT stations (e.g., Coliseum, Stadium and future South LRT extension stations).