As PlayWright owner Steve Brochu closes shop, downtown restaurants continue to ask for help amid high construction and low foot traffic. Despite being in the Citadel Theatre, part of the branded Arts District surrounding Churchill Square, Brochu said business there is untenable. He made the decision to close "after a lot of hard work, long nights, and fighting through some incredibly difficult operating conditions," he wrote on Instagram. He did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
PlayWright is not the first downtown restaurant to fold this year. Khazana closed earlier this month, after 28 years in business, citing interwoven challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic and blocked access to the restaurant due to construction. A bit west on Jasper Avenue, Kommune Snack Bar also closed in June. "We tried hard to navigate the construction outside our doors, rising costs, and the challenges facing independent businesses," a staff member wrote on Instagram before the account was deleted. "In the end, we couldn't make the numbers work."
Some members of council have heeded the call to support the restaurant industry, including Mayor Andrew Knack. After voting with the majority of councillors in March to keep new patio fees in place, he introduced a motion in June to revise the fees, which have been voraciously criticized by some business owners. "I think we need to stop being so rigid as a city when we're looking at activation of our streets," he said, noting that he had misunderstood the number of fees that restaurants have to pay. The patio program had been funded through photo radar revenue, but now that the province prohibits that, administration will examine alternative funding sources for 2027.
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Economic development
Teledyne MEMS has expanded its Edmonton manufacturing operations with support from a $620,000 provincial grant, reinforcing Alberta's growing role in the global semiconductor supply chain. The expansion adds wafer processing, inspection, and automation equipment to the company's production facility for micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) sensors and microfabricated semiconductor devices. The expansion is "a powerful vote of confidence in our region's talent, infrastructure, and innovation ecosystem," Edmonton Global posted in response to the announcement.
The Alberta Utilities Commission has approved a 1,864-megawatt natural gas power plant to be built by Pembina Pipeline and Kineticor. The Sturgeon County facility, known as the Greenlight Electricity Centre, is expected to be operational by 2031 and supply power to Alberta's data centre industry. "The same reasons that we're competitive in the (petrochemical) space and in the energy space make us now desirable for data centres, for the next kind of form of the industrial revolution," Sturgeon County Mayor Alanna Hnatiw told Postmedia. "We didn't even look for data centres — those site selectors search the world to find the right places, and they found us, so we've got two coming."
Champion Petfoods announced the grand opening of its $32-million Global Innovation and Discovery Centre in Acheson on June 24. The new centre "strengthens Champion's ability to develop, evaluate and refine new recipes, proprietary technologies and product concepts," the company said in a release, noting that the centre "reinforces Champion's commitment to its Alberta roots by leveraging the region's world-class agricultural network."
The federal government has invested $3 million in the University of Alberta's Canadian AI Compute Vault, a secure, Canadian-law-governed AI development hub for small and medium-sized businesses. The facility offers computing power at up to 70% less than commercial cloud providers, helping startups build AI models without routing sensitive data through U.S.-based servers.
British Airways and Porter Airlines have announced a new codeshare agreement, giving British Airways customers easy access to Edmonton and 16 other Canadian destinations when travelling to or from London via Toronto or Montreal.
The inaugural AfriCanada Expo 2026 concluded in Edmonton with 100 delegates from 10 countries participating in four days of trade and investment dialogue. Delegates expressed formal investment interest in Alberta agricultural land, agri-processing, and renewable energy sites.
The first Indigenous Business and Vendor Marketplace was held at ATB Place in downtown Edmonton, bringing together entrepreneurs, artisans, and organizations from across Alberta to network and support Indigenous-owned businesses. Organizer Crystal Janvier-Romaniuk of Sundance Enterprises said the event reflects "a real appetite" to support Indigenous entrepreneurs.
BetaKit profiled Myrna and Dean Bittner, co-founders of RUNWITHIT Synthetics, the Edmonton-based startup building synthetic environments to model potential futures for disaster response, climate resiliency, and health.
DrugBank CEO Lisa Downey appeared on the AI For Pharma Growth podcast, arguing that most pharmaceutical AI initiatives will fail without high-quality, structured biomedical data. DrugBank's two decades of data-building work now underpins the AI tools pharma companies are racing to deploy, she said.
Peter Keith, director of the eHUB Entrepreneurship Centre, shared insights with Cesar Rojas on building a startup in Edmonton, including his journey from the restaurant world to innovation and entrepreneurship. He covered why most companies aren't a good fit for venture capital, how to vet a co-founder, and what the city's key ecosystem players are.
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Edmonton Pride Seniors Group and Right at Home Housing Society have secured land and nearly $9 million in provincial funding for a 64-unit inclusive seniors housing development in The Quarters. The project — in the works since 2013 — could break ground as early as next summer. "My personal opinion is that there is no normal timeline when it comes to building affordable housing … Right now, we're in an amazing funding environment, but in 2014 or 2013, those funds probably wouldn't have been available," Right at Home executive director Marisa Redmond told Taproot.
Edmonton city council has deferred the Rossdale Flats redevelopment decision to gain more input from Indigenous groups, following a contentious public hearing on June 23. The discussions highlighted concerns about preserving sacred burial grounds. The decision will be revisited at a public hearing on July 6, following an urban planning committee meeting on July 2.
Edmonton led all major Canadian markets in luxury home sales growth, with activity up nearly 50% year-over-year in the first four months of 2026, according to a RE/MAX Canada report covered by Toronto Life.
Edmonton is the most affordable market in Canada for parents buying condos for post-secondary students, according to a Zoocasa study cited by Postmedia. A 20% down payment on the average Edmonton condo runs about $12,000 less than three years of rent, and units near the University of Alberta and MacEwan University can be found for as little as $80,000.
Edmonton's total commercial real estate transaction volume backed by mortgage financing nearly doubled over five years, rising from $738 million in 2020 to over $1.6 billion in 2025, according to Avison Young. As interest rates ease into 2026, falling debt-servicing costs are expected to expand borrowing limits and accelerate transaction velocity, the firm said.
Sisters Karyn Decore and Nicole Arquero of the Edmonton-headquartered Decore Hotels have acquired the historic Athabasca Hotel, a 98-year-old landmark in Jasper that the Bassani family had operated since 1972.
The Western Canadian Baseball League voted unanimously to allow the Energy City Cactus Rats to play home games at the partially finished Energy City Metro Ballpark in Spruce Grove, but no fans will be permitted until safety measures are in place. The $50-million ballpark has been under construction since 2022.
Veteran Edmonton sportscaster Kevin Karius has announced his retirement after 36 years in broadcasting, including a 25-year run as a sports anchor at Global Edmonton and three years hosting a morning show on Sports 1440. His final broadcast airs on June 26.
Happenings
Here are some events coming up over the next seven days:
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