If you've ever stepped outside into a -30°C Edmonton January and immediately regretted every life decision that led you to that moment, you understand exactly why this idea is taking off.

A post on r/Edmonton this week sparked a wave of responses after one user floated a simple but very Edmonton question: what if you could live in an apartment physically connected to West Edmonton Mall elevator straight to the food court, no parka required?

"Imagine you can just take an elevator directly to the mall without ever having to go outside or into a car," the post read. "Especially in the winter. You'd never have to go outdoors."

This Idea Is Less Wild Than It Sounds

Here's the thing it nearly happened. Back in 2002, the City of Edmonton approved plans for a 600-unit apartment building as part of a major WEM expansion. Two decades later, it was never built.

WEM already has the Fantasyland Hotel inside the mall and the West Edmonton Mall Inn across the street but a hotel is a very different thing than actually living there. Hotels are for visitors passing through. Apartments would mean permanent residents with their own front door, their own lease, their own life just happening to be a two-minute walk from a waterpark and a Cactus Club.

WEM's owner Triple Five Group has over 30,000 residential units in various stages of planning across North America and has developed mixed-use residential in Edmonton before. The City's own zoning bylaws for the WEM site already permit up to 500 dwelling units up to 49.9 metres tall, and WEM is designated a District Node under Edmonton's City Plan meaning the city actively wants higher-density development there. The framework exists. Nobody has pulled the trigger.

Why Edmontonians Want It

The appeal is obvious to anyone who lives here. Edmonton winters are brutal. The city is car-dependent by design, and the idea of eliminating the cold-weather commute entirely even just for groceries, a haircut, or dinner hits differently when it's dark by 4:30 p.m. and the wind chill is doing something criminal outside.

WEM already has a full grocery store, restaurants, an ice rink, a waterpark, a bowling alley, and hundreds of shops. As a self-contained environment it's arguably more complete than most Edmonton neighbourhoods. The Valley Line LRT extension to WEM is also in the works, which would connect future residents directly to downtown without a car.

Has It Been Done Elsewhere?

Mall-connected residential isn't a new concept globally. In Asia and parts of Europe, mixed-use towers integrated into major retail and transit hubs are standard. Even in Edmonton, the downtown pedway system already connects office towers and residential buildings to shops and services underground WEM would just be a much bigger, much warmer version of that.

The Reddit thread hasn't produced a development announcement. But the fact that hundreds of Edmontonians immediately said yes, obviously, why doesn't this exist in a city that approved the concept over 20 years ago and still hasn't built it is its own kind of answer.

Would you actually want to live in an apartment connected directly to West Edmonton Mall? Let us know in the comments.

Sources: Reddit r/Edmonton, Wikipedia — West Edmonton Mall, City of Edmonton Zoning Bylaw DC2.1012, Triple Five Group.