EDMONTON – Condo residents are raising concerns about an application for the development of a proposed gentlemen’s club in the Cambridge Building in downtown Edmonton.
“This used to be a place called Churchills which was a lounge, bar, pub from the 1950s and 60s when the building was first built and operating as an office tower,” says Kent McKay, a member of the New Cambridge Lofts condo board.
The pub closed its doors in the basement of the Cambridge Building in the late 1980s. Since then, the lower level of the building on the corner of 100 Street and Jasper Avenue has sat mostly vacant.
However, the vacant office space in the upper levels was converted into residential condominiums in 2004, and now houses more than 200 residential suites.
Recently, an application was made to develop the basement level of the Cambridge Lofts into a strip club.
“One hundred per cent confirmed. We met with the applicant himself, who showed us a little bit of his vision for the space,” explains McKay. “It includes private dance rooms for lap dances and that kind of activity.”
That meeting with the applicant, Allen Entertainment, took place May 27.
Residents and condo owners in the building are worried about what could happen if the permit is approved.
“People are concerned for various reasons,” says McKay. “People are concerned about safety, the kinds of people that might be hanging out in this area. They’re concerned about sharing access points to the building, doors and entrances, with the patrons of the strip club, and of course, people are concerned about their enjoyment of the building and their property values as well.”
There is pedway access from Churchill LRT station into the Cambridge Building.
“If you’re a resident coming in from the pedway, for instance, you’d have to actually pass by the strip club in order to access your elevators in order to get home.”
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McKay says the condo board would welcome another business to develop the basement space, but feels a strip club is not compatible for a space shared with a residential building.
“We circulated a petition through the building, and we got a great amount of signatures on that petition. We’ve been very proactive in getting in touch with the city and any stakeholder that might be involved.”
Ward 6 Councillor Jane Batty agreed this particular development is likely not appropriate for a residential building.
“To be honest, I don’t approve of that,” she says. “There are 200 residents that live in there. I know that this is part of downtown, you can call part of revitalization, but I’m not sure that a gentleman’s club, or a strip club, or whatever you call it, should be in the basement of a residence like the Cambridge Lofts.”
“Some condo buildings have specific bylaws that prohibit certain types of business from operating in the condo,” McKay clarifies. “Ours unfortunately do not have any restrictions… our hands are tied to a degree. We’re really relying on the city to shut this one down.”
Because the spaced is categorized as discretionary use, the final decision on the permit rests in the hands of the city development officer in charge of the application.
“In speaking with the development officer, I’m optimistic that our concerns will be heard.”
“The development planner from the city of Edmonton has been very, very involved and very active with it,” says Batty. “He is the one that will either approve or not approve the application.”
“If he approves the application then there is a two week mandatory period where residents can certainly go to the Subdivision and Development Appeal Board… the other side of that is that the applicant, if he is turned down, he as well, can go to the Subdivision and Development Appeal Board.”
Batty adds the rules surrounding development downtown – in the wake of increased residential development – need to be re-examined.
“As a council member, we’ve always asked to have a commercial or retail component to the bottom of these condos that go in in the downtown and we’ve always thought of it as small businesses going in. We really hadn’t given it the kind of thought we should have as to what the discretionary uses are.”
McKay stresses the residents are not opposed to the application based on moral grounds, but rather, he says, it’s a compatibility issue.
The board “isn’t really interested in the nature of the business – it’s not so much a moral aspect that bothers us at all – it’s just the incompatibility of this particular space, given the context of being located in a residential building.”
Ian Allen, the executive director of Allen Entertainment Inc. declined to be interviewed by Global News for this story, but he provided this statement:
“All I can tell you at this time is that we have a pending development permit for the Churchill’s space and are doing everything we can to make the transition as painless as possible for the residents of Cambridge lofts.”
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