Edmonton City Centre has a buyer, and its secured lender is taking a loss.
The Alberta Court of King's Bench approved the sale of the downtown mall and office towers to Edmonton-based Westrich Pacific on August 7, a year after the property went into receivership. The deal is expected to close before the end of 2026.
The price
The sale price hasn't been disclosed, and portions of the sale materials will remain confidential until the deal closes.
The receiver's report does say the final price is below the roughly $300 million the property fetched in 2019, and that secured lender Otéra Capital will take a significant shortfall on the nearly $140 million it is owed. Otéra is backing the sale anyway, calling the Westrich offer the best available.
Seven years, one pandemic, and a lost department store anchor separate those two numbers.
How it got here
Montreal-based Otéra Capital financed the 2019 acquisition, providing a $128.5-million acquisition loan and a capital expenditure and leasing facility of up to $27 million. The ownership group was led by LaSalle Canada Property Fund.
Required payments stopped in December 2024. Otéra held off on further action until July 1, 2025, then filed a statement of claim on July 2 after a final demand went unanswered. By June 2025 the outstanding amount had reached roughly $139.5 million before additional interest, expenses and costs.
In its receivership application, Otéra described City Centre as a complex property requiring active management, and argued its security was at risk of waste because the asset was not being properly funded or maintained.
The court granted the order in July 2025 and appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers as receiver. Westrich Management Ltd., or its nominee, signed a purchase and sale agreement on July 20, 2026.
What Westrich plans to build
The first phase would add roughly 1,500 homes on the former Hudson's Bay site, plus new street-front retail, a redesigned exterior and a rooftop Nordic spa.
Later phases are envisioned to bring more retail, entertainment, wellness and experiential uses, along with a new exterior treatment and LED displays.
Westrich expects major construction on the first phase to begin in early 2027, subject to approvals. Development permit drawings are being advanced now.
Mayor Andrew Knack called it a sign of confidence in the core. "Westrich has a proven track record of getting projects built and bringing more people into the heart of the city," he said.
The street-front detail matters more than the spa
Edmonton City Centre has always faced inward, toward interior corridors and the pedway. That design is a big reason the sidewalks around it feel dead at street level.
New street-facing retail changes what someone walking on 102 Avenue actually encounters. It's less glamorous than a rooftop spa, and more likely to change how downtown feels.
The pedway did what it was built to do. It moved office workers between towers without going outside, in a city where that matters five months a year. It also took every one of those people off the sidewalk.
What's still unknown
A lot remains undisclosed. Westrich has not released the acquisition price, total development cost, the number or height of the residential buildings, whether the homes will be condos or rentals, how much of the existing structure will be demolished, altered or reused, or the final retail footprint.
The operator of the Nordic spa hasn't been named, and no specific entertainment or wellness concepts have been identified for later phases.
The property itself
Edmonton City Centre spans roughly 1.4 million square feet across about 10 acres on 102 Avenue, running from 100 Street to 103 Street.
It includes Edmonton City Centre West and East, Centre Point Place, TD Tower, 102A Tower and about 2,500 parking stalls across four parking areas.
The site connects to the Metro and Capital LRT lines at Churchill Station and to the Valley Line Southeast at the 102 Street stop, with pedway links running through the financial core.
Hudson's Bay occupied roughly 168,000 square feet before announcing its closure in 2020 and exiting in 2021, taking the last traditional department store anchor with it. Sport Chek and Atmosphere left in 2023 after declining to renew. Winners, Landmark Cinemas, Shoppers Drug Mart and Dollarama continue to operate there.
The property's history runs back through Edmonton Centre, which opened in the 1970s, and Eaton Centre, which followed in the 1980s. The two were later combined under the Edmonton City Centre name. Oxford Properties modernized the food court, retail configuration and parking in the mid-2010s, a few years before the 2019 sale.
The downtown it's landing in
Nearly 13,000 people currently live in downtown Edmonton, against a much larger daytime population of workers, students and visitors. Adding 1,500 homes inside one of the core's largest commercial properties would put a permanent customer base in a building that has depended on the weekday office cycle.
Those households would be there on Saturday mornings and Tuesday evenings, which is exactly when a mall built around commuters empties out.
The timing is tough. Greta, Bündok, PlayWright, Khazana and kb&co all closed in June and July 2026. The Edmonton Chamber of Commerce said in July that nearly 20 businesses have shut in the core this year, citing construction disruption, reduced foot traffic, accessibility and parking, public safety, hybrid work and operating costs. The Downtown Revitalization Coalition has raised similar concerns.
Some signals point the other way. Office sublease availability is falling, and residential development and public investment are continuing.
Who Westrich is
Westrich Pacific is an Edmonton-based multifamily and mixed-use developer with a portfolio that includes the Ultima and Encore high-rises, along with other condominium and rental projects in and around downtown. Its Grandin City plans have included multiple residential towers.
The company has also moved into consumer-facing business, holding Canadian development rights for the Los Angeles restaurant concept Eggslut.
Edmonton City Centre is a different order of project. Roughly 1,500 homes in the first phase alone, inside a property that also holds hundreds of thousands of square feet of retail and office space.
What happens next
The sale closes before the end of 2026. Development permits follow, then construction in early 2027 if approvals land.
Later phases will proceed as market conditions permit. That phrase is worth remembering. A 2021 rendering for this same site has already been abandoned.
We'll update this article as permits are filed and details are released.
Sources
Alberta Court of King's Bench, sale approval order, August 7, 2026
PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc., receiver's reports, Edmonton City Centre Inc.
Otéra Capital Inc., statement of claim, July 2025
Westrich Pacific, news release
City of Edmonton, downtown population figures
Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, July 2026 statement
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