Whyte Avenue’s Empty Lots

This lot at 99 and Whyte has been empty for a decade.

Since I first moved to Edmonton there’s been this big empty lot at the corner of 82 Avenue and 105 Street. It used to be a gas station.

The old gas tanks left a lot of contamination in the soil and so it continues to sit, the underground being cleaned by Imperial Oil (Esso), and will likely remain a fenced-in field for years to come. What an eyesore in the city’s showcase neighbourhood.

(For a thorough rundown check out this 2006 story from Vue Weekly.)

Former Platz Shell now a shell of itself.

Now a second gas station on Whyte Avenue is closed up and I dread a new empty lot will take its place. Platz Shell Service (9950 82 Avenue) has moved on. The crew picked up and headed up to the Ottewell neighbourhood.

A thought did strike me, however, as I pondered the other two gas stations on Whyte (an Esso at 99 Street and another at 109 Street). If the future is going to include more mass transit (and I think it should) and walkable neighbourhoods such as Old Strathcona, aren’t we going to see more empty lots where gas stations once sat?

Let’s hope they aren’t all as dirty as the one entering its second decade of decontamination.