A “Shell” of Itself
This old Shell station is being ripped up.
Who’s noticed the bulldozers ripping things up on Whyte Avenue at 100 Street?
We did. The disappearance of Platz Shell Service (9950 82 Avenue) was reported by the edmontonian one week ago. After closing up the station a final time, June 15, the Platz crew packed up the service side of things and headed over to the Ottewell neighbourhood…and that leaves a gas station to be disposed of.
Shirley Lowe, president of the Old Strathcona Business Association is waiting to see what’s going to happen to the site.
This lot at 105 and Whyte has been empty for a decade. (Thx JP!)
Whyte Avenue already has an empty lot. The contaminated Esso site at Whyte and 105 Street is now in its second decade of vacancy.
In an e-mail, Lowe says the fate of Whyte and 100 Street remains to be seen.
“How badly contaminated is this (Platz location) and does Shell care?”
“Is the remediation requirement a residential standard?” she asks. “If so, this can be rezoned.”
Underground fuel tanks need to be dug up.
The site remains under ownership of Shell Canada Limited, and there are no solid plans for the property.
Meanwhile, work has begun on removing the station’s underground fuel tanks.
Senior Communications Representative, Jackie Panera, tells the edmontonian they don’t know what the remedy for the abandoned gas station is.
“We are still determining the long-term future of the site and if we are going to sell the property,” Panera writes in an e-mail. “Since we have not determined what we are going to do long-term with the property, we don’t have timelines to share with you today on remediation plans.”
The Shell rep notes the company is monitoring its tanks for leakage during the removal process, as per Alberta Environment requirements.
So, just to recap: Shell is deciding whether they’ll build anew or sell the property. For the moment though, it looks like people living and visiting Old Strathcona may want to get used to looking at another empty lot.
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.
Gone are the days of full service.
