Developer asks public to name city centre community

When the City Centre airport is no longer used for planes, what will the area be called?

Blatchford Field was the original name for the airport lands, named after a former Edmonton mayor and strong supporter of Edmonton’s aviation industry, Kenny Blatchford.

Group2 Architecture and the city’s naming committee also apparently argued for the Blatchford Field name, but the city’s marketing consultants put out a survey recently with six options, and Blatchford Field is not one of them.

The shortlist from the survey is:
Avia Park, Crossroads, Central Park, Sol’Town, The Landing, and Wingfield.

In the survey, the developer describes the land as a “dynamic community is situated on the downtown airport lands. It offers a superior location, is being designed as a leader in sustainable development, and offers excellent lifestyle opportunities.”

The future development is described as featuring “a diverse mix of multi-family homes, a boutique oriented commercial high street, and excellent lifestyle and recreational amenities. The community will have shopping, casual dining, entertainment and light rail transit which will all be accessible to the public.”

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The description includes a park, lake and stream, and solar power technology. The housing styles proposed are apartment condos, brick townhomes, duplexes and other attached home styles.

The Edmonton Journal columnist Elise Stolte spoke with Craig Fitch, the city’s land development coordinator, who says the Blatchford Field could still be considered. “I guess at this point we haven’t ruled anything out. These were just some names that we wanted to test,” he said.

The final decision goes to the group of citizens appointed to the city’s Naming. They’re going to be looking for something that relates to Edmonton, something that ties to our history or expresses what we’re all about.

However, the survey ends with a disclaimer saying “the reserves the right to select or reject the most popular name result or any other name choice from this survey for this development at their discretion.”

So, what do you think?

With files from Elise Stolte, The Edmonton Journal