Walk east on 87th Avenue past 117th Street this summer and you pass two versions of the same bet. On one side, construction fencing wraps a lot where a strip mall used to sit, the kind with a restaurant, a bank branch, a convenience store, and a hair salon all under one roof. On the other side, a newer building called Windsor House stands finished and mostly dark at street level, its retail space filled by exactly one tenant: a coffee shop.
Windsor Park is about to find out which version wins.
The tower everyone here has an opinion about
In May 2026, Edmonton City Council approved rezoning for a residential high-rise at the corner of 87 Avenue and 117 Street, on a site with the civic address 11630 87 Avenue. The project, called Windsor Heights, has been through more than one version of itself. When Westrich Pacific held its open house in July 2025, the proposal on the table was 27 storeys. By the time council signed off this spring, CBC reported the approved building at 25 storeys with 285 rental units, 250 underground parking stalls, and up to 24,000 square feet of retail. Daily Hive's coverage of the same approval put the height at 25 to 27 storeys, roughly 88 metres, scaled back from an original pitch of 32, and estimated closer to 270 at-market units. The numbers move depending on which week you check, which is its own small lesson about how these projects get reported as they evolve. What doesn't move is the location: a four-storey base anchoring a tower on one of the few arterial corners in Windsor Park, within walking distance of the Health Sciences/Jubilee LRT station and the University of Alberta.
What the ground floor is supposed to solve
Westrich told Daily Hive its goal for the street-level space is a walkable neighbourhood hub, and that residents in the area had specifically asked for cafes, restaurants, wine bars, and professional or medical services. That's a reasonable read of the neighbourhood. Windsor Park sits blocks from the university and the hospital district, and the appetite for a coffee stop or a lunch spot within walking distance is real.
But that 24,000 square feet doesn't appear out of nothing. It replaces a strip mall that, as CBC reported, currently houses a local restaurant, a bank, a convenience store, and a hair salon. Those four businesses are the neighbourhood's actual existing ground-floor economy on this block, not a wish list. Whether they reappear inside the new building, get replaced by different tenants entirely, or don't come back at all is the real story here, and it's one renderings don't answer.
A community member named Lynch, quoted in that same CBC piece, raised the practical version of this concern directly: newer buildings often come with newer rents, and small independent retailers don't always survive the jump. He pointed to Windsor House, a block away, as the cautionary example already sitting in plain view.
The one-block precedent nobody's advertising
Windsor House isn't hypothetical. It's built, it's leased for residential, and its retail frontage has had months to fill up. According to Lynch's account to CBC, that space has remained largely vacant, with a single coffee shop as the only business currently operating out of it.
Set the two buildings side by side and the pattern is worth sitting with:
- Windsor House (existing): retail space built into a newer residential building on 87th Avenue, largely vacant since opening, one coffee shop as the sole tenant.
- Windsor Heights (approved, not yet built): up to 24,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space across two floors, publicly framed by the developer as a future home for cafes, restaurants, and wine bars.
One of these is a plan. The other is a result. Windsor Park residents watching this project's marketing renderings have a real, physical comparison one block over, and it isn't the walkable hub the newer project is promising.
None of this means Windsor Heights is doomed to repeat it. Larger footprints, different lease structures, and a bigger residential base overhead all change the math. But a neighbourhood that already has one recent example of new retail space sitting empty has more reason than most to watch this specific outcome rather than take the pitch at face value.
Not every resident has been sold on the trade-off regardless of what fills the storefronts. At the July 2025 open house, resident Lori Bennett put the height concern plainly:
"I feel for all these other neighbours and I don't want a 27-floor building in my neighbourhood."
Ward papastew Councillor Michael Janz, who represents Windsor Park and lives in the area himself, framed the approval around housing pressure rather than street-level retail, telling CBC there's "low vacancy" and "a lot of demand and interest" near the university. Both things can be true at once. The building may ease a real housing shortage close to campus while still leaving open the question of what actually happens to those 24,000 square feet.
87th Avenue isn't just this one corner
Windsor Heights is the tallest project on this stretch, but it isn't the only one. Westrich Pacific, the same developer, also has a separate project underway a few blocks over: West Windsor Apartments at 8715 118 Street, a six-storey, 172-unit building spanning roughly 140,758 square feet, according to Alberta's Major Projects registry. Daily Hive's reporting also noted two additional purpose-built rental buildings from the same developer already in the works nearby along 116th Street.
Add those together and 87th Avenue starts to look less like a single tower dropped into a quiet corner and more like a corridor being rebuilt in stages, one site at a time, over several years. For a resident who bought into Windsor Park for its proximity to the river valley and the university without expecting a construction zone, that's a meaningfully different neighbourhood story than "one building went up."
The zoning conversation isn't confined to the tower
The high-rise on 87th Avenue isn't the only density question Windsor Park has been sorting through this year. In a January 2026 newsletter, the Windsor Park Community League flagged a separate, citywide debate over reducing infill dwellings from eight units down to six, and noted that the league's own development committee has been tracking what that change would mean for blocks well away from the arterial roads. Between the tower at the north end of the neighbourhood and the infill rules affecting single-family lots throughout it, Windsor Park is having more than one conversation about what density looks like here, at the same time, in the same year.
What to actually watch for
If you live in Windsor Park, the renderings and the height numbers are the least interesting part of this story. The number worth tracking is a simpler one: how much of that 24,000 square feet is actually leased and open a year after the building's retail floors are finished, and to whom. Windsor House already gave the neighbourhood a preview of how that math can go. Whether Windsor Heights writes a different ending is the thing nobody currently answering questions about parking and shadow studies has actually committed to.
For now, the fencing is up, the strip mall's four tenants are on notice, and one coffee shop a block away is still, as far as anyone's reported, the only thing open.
Rimrock keeps close tabs on how Edmonton's established neighbourhoods change street by street, not just how their home prices move. If you're curious about what's happening in Windsor Park or want a longer view of the area's draw for university and hospital-adjacent living, our Windsor Park neighbourhood guide and our earlier look at Windsor Park's academic and medical appeal are good places to start. And whenever you're ready to talk through a lot, a build, or a move in Edmonton's core neighbourhoods, Rimrock Real Estate is here to start that conversation.
