The Pulse: June 24, 2025

Puneeta McBryan said she will leave her role as CEO of the Edmonton Downtown Business Association once she has helped hire a successor, but not because she is moving to a new gig or has ambitions for the coming municipal election.

"The decision was a long time coming," McBryan told Taproot. "My kid is growing up really fast, and I want to be home more. This is very much a personal decision, just as much as it is a career decision."

McBryan was hired in December 2020 and has led the EDBA, and in some ways downtown, through challenging times since. From the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant shift in downtown work and leisure patterns, to social conditions that leave some feeling unsafe on downtown streets, McBryan has fought a challenging battle while stewarding new events focused on bringing fun and funding back downtown to stimulate business growth.

McBryan said her next chapter will be deciding what to do next, and underlined to Taproot she will not work for a candidate or run as one in October's municipal election. On that point, she joked that some already call her role the 14th member of council. "Municipal politics is just hard," she said. "I have so much respect for the people who do it, but I don't think I could, especially after getting a little taste of it in this job."

During McBryan's time heading EDBA, she has helped lead several projects, including the annual Imagining Downtown event, Downtown Spark (which changed forms until it was replaced by block parties), two alley transformation projects, the Downtown Ambassadors program, the Edmonton downtown gift card, the Downtown Winterval festival, the resurrection of the Downtown Farmers' Market, and three business grants funded by the Government of Alberta and the City of Edmonton.

Taproot covered one of those grants, known as the Downtown Retail Attraction project. It saw six businesses receive $212,000. Result: One business left downtown within a year but five others have set up downtown, including Foosh, Obj3cts, and Le Belle Arti, with The Den, the final grant recipient, opening this month. The business association now also operates entertainment districts for the City of Edmonton on both Rice Howard Way and 104 Street (Taproot recently reported that alcohol must be served in disposable plastic cups). And the aforementioned Core Patrol can no longer provide daytime service because funding for those hours has run out.

Mark Anderson, the EBDA's board chair and a managing director for CBRE, said McBryan made change. "She raised the bar and ultimately redefined the work that a Business Improvement Area should be doing in Edmonton," Anderson wrote in a statement. "The EDBA is now in the best position it has ever been in."

Anderson pointed out that in just the past two years, McBryan spoke at more than 13 city council meetings, and met with 20 MLAs, cabinet ministers, and Premier Danielle Smith, plus federal and international leaders, on behalf of the EDBA.

• Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi appeared poised to win the byelection in Edmonton-Strathcona, formerly held by Rachel Notley, CBC News reported late June 23. Resignations triggered the three Alberta byelections. The other ridings included Edmonton-Ellerslie, where NDP candidate Gurtej Singh Brar also appeared poised to win late on June 23, and Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills, where UCP candidate Tara Sawyer was predicted to win. Elections Alberta is expected to release he official results on July 3.
• Edmonton city council is set to decide on extending the community revitalization levy (CRL) for another 10 years, with public hearings scheduled for June 26 and 27. The Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, the Edmonton Downtown Business Association, and the Downtown Revitalization Coalition are urging council to approve the extension, which they say is vital for downtown's future and has driven more than $5 billion in investment since 2015. Ward Papastew Coun. Michael Janz has voiced his opposition, suggesting a referendum on the matter due to its connection with Oilers Entertainment Group projects.
• Edmonton city council is considering a feasibility study for a footbridge over Manning Drive to connect northeast neighbourhoods to Manning Town Centre. Coun. Aaron Paquette of Ward Dene says a safe pedestrian crossing is needed, as residents currently must detour to 153rd Avenue or illegally cross the busy road. Council's executive committee passed Paquette's motion unanimously, and council could decide in the fall of 2025 whether to fund the feasibility study. Paquette estimates the bridge could cost more than $10 million, with potential contributions from developers.
• Edmonton is hosting weekly volunteer weed-pulling events to help residents identify and remove invasive plants threatening the city's parks and ecosystems. Invasive species like Japanese knotweed and creeping bellflower damage infrastructure and outcompete native plants, with broader environmental and economic impacts. While the City of Edmonton no longer uses herbicides on dandelions, it enforces the removal of 75 other regulated weeds, with complaints handled through 311.
• A newly renovated 12-storey building in downtown Edmonton, called the SunRise, received a Guinness World Record for featuring the world's largest solar panel mural. The mural, titled The Land We Share, was created by Indigenous artist Lance Cardinal, and features First Nations and Chinese representation inspired by animals of the Cree tradition and the Chinese zodiac. Mitrex, a Canadian company, manufactured the solar façade for Avenue Living, owner-operator of the 179-unit building located on 106 Avenue and 101 Street NW.
• In a piece on his website titled Ecotone Urbanism, Edmonton writer Dustin Bajer argues that cities like Edmonton, which is located at the ecological edge between prairie and forest, should embrace the richness of transition zones, or ecotones. He suggests that urban design should prioritize connection over separation, using meandering, irregular spaces to foster both biodiversity and human interaction. Drawing from examples like New York's Broadway, Bajer calls for cities to treat infrastructure as edge habitat and maximize overlap between natural and built environments.
• Following a complaint in April about alleged assaults at Emerald Park Day Care in Sherwood Park, Strathcona County RCMP charged a 21-year-old Edmonton woman with five counts of assault. The alleged assaults occurred between March 17 and April 3 and involved five victims between the ages of five and eight. The woman was released on conditions and is scheduled to appear in court in Sherwood Park on July 9.
• The Edmonton Elks added American defensive lineman Elijah Alston to their practice roster. Alston, 24, played five seasons of NCAA Division I football, four with the Marshall Thundering Herd and one with the Miami Hurricanes.

The co-hosts of Episode 313 of Speaking Municipally discussed how a city council committee has endorsed a motion to send proposed changes to its country-leading housing policy to a public hearing on June 30.

The proposal is to specify the number of infill housing units that Edmonton's blanket zoning allows to decrease from eight to six when said housing is within the middle of a block. While some have framed the proposed change, driven by a motion introduced by Coun. Michael Janz, as a subtle shift that codifies what was already the rule, others, including The Globe and Mail editorial board, suggests Edmonton's council is now caving to those who want to slow change on housing, should the councillors approve the amendments on June 30.

1. Mid on midblock?

Co-host Mack Male said the motion at council's urban planning committee caught him off guard. "This is surprising to me ... for a few different reasons — one being that I think, as you and I talked about before, this felt like it might be a little bit of an election issue and perhaps something that we might want the next council to make a decision about," he said.

He added that Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said during the committee discussion that some residents have concerns about density, but those concerns must be weighed with the importance of Edmonton meeting its infill goals to increase both the city's fiscal sustainability and its reductions to carbon output.

2. The policy and the politics

Male then asked co-host Troy Pavlek what the practical implications of the committee decision are.

"It's honestly nothing," Pavlek said. "So this is coming with a suite of zoning bylaw changes that we talked about in a previous episode — things like, you know, doors not facing other side yards, some architectural design changes, some more guidance on setbacks. And the practical changes and the practical meaning of all of those changes is that, basically, all midblock lots in the City of Edmonton, if they're following every other regulation, kind of (already) can't have ... eight units, right?"

Pavlek also noted Janz said the regulations already prevent eight-unit buildings on midblock lots, and that this proposed change aims to make that explicit, but read deeper than that. "My take on this is that this is exceptionally bad policy that's probably really good politics," he said.

3. Variation leads to variances?

Why does he think this is bad policy? Pavlek said other changes, like buildings with single-egress stairwells (also known as point-access blocks, which Taproot has reported on) could change what housing is possible in midblock scenarios, allowing new building types and increased unit counts.

"I think at the end of the day, when (the city introduced the small-scale flex residential) zone, the idea was we're building something that's very flexible and we're doing a mass upzoning to give every lot the same potential," Pavlek said. "Now, corner lots have more potential than midblock lots, and I'm rolling the dice, as a betting man, we're going to get a midblock rezoning request to city council to say 'I want, on this midblock parcel, a variance to do up to eight units.' As soon as one of those comes to public hearing, it'll be clear that we've lost the plot and this was an error."

The June 20 episode also included discussion of single-use plastic, street design standards, and more. Speaking Municipally is released on Fridays. Listening and subscription options are all right here.

Here are some events happening today in the Edmonton area.

• Edmonton Entrepreneur Talks: Featuring Carmen Leibel starting at 10am at La French Taste
• Papps Meerkat starting at 12pm at La Cité Francophone
• Understanding Accessibility and AgeTech starting at 12pm online
• Payments for Modern SMEs | Learning Lab Series starting at 1pm online
• Surviving the Freelance Grind: Free Masterclass with Writer and Editor Omar Mouallem starting at 5:30pm online
• Cochinita Pibil Master Class starting at 6pm at La Morenita Cafe
• Online Support Group for People Experiencing an Eating Disorder or Disordered Eating starting at 6pm online
• LeetNight Pop-Up at Hearth starting at 6pm at Hearth Co-work and Co-wellness
• Caregiver Support Community Session starting at 6:30pm online
• Book Launch: Leander K. Lane starting at 7pm at Audreys Books
• Who Put Fruit in My Beer and Why Is It So Good starting at 7pm at The Underground Tap & Grill
• How Place Matters: Leveraging Edmonton's Assets for a Vibrant Future starting at 7pm at Edmonton Public Library (Stanley A. Milner)

And here are some upcoming events to keep in mind:

• July 1: Networking Event for Newcomers at Art Gallery of Alberta
• July 4-13: Edmonton International Street Performers Festival at Churchill Square
• July 11: Monthly Friendly Fridays at Darkhorse Analytics

Visit the beta version of the Taproot Edmonton Calendar for many more events in the Edmonton region.