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Parking in Waterloo Region
It now means that the parking will need to be below grade. The majority of the parking for the Barrelyards is below grade and it surely has the same water table issues that other buildings where parking podiums were proposed as as a better solution. Yes, it will cost the developer more in the long run, but it will create a better street face for pedestrians.
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Ya absolutely but given how much more the project now costs it's not inconceivable that the project gets scaled back and redesigned
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Or scaled up, with a larger office building footprint. Or with a condo tower added.

If you need to go to the expense of building a (large!) underground parking garage, you will want to max out the benefit from that, and that may mean a larger building. In which case the residents may have got what they asked for (no parking garage next door) but still be unhappy with what they do get (an even taller office building next door).
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(03-20-2019, 09:37 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Or scaled up, with a larger office building footprint. Or with a condo tower added.

If you need to go to the expense of building a (large!) underground parking garage, you will want to max out the benefit from that, and that may mean a larger building. In which case the residents may have got what they asked for (no parking garage next door) but still be unhappy with what they do get (an even taller office building next door).

Is a larger building feasible? I'm not sure what the city parking requirements are here (I very much hope they are zero), but who ever will occupy the building will want parking. Building size is likely limited by parking, an underground lot will be smaller, and likely limit the size of the building.

Implementing a condo/apartment tower would be a possible modification if it was possible to share parking, which is a good idea, but I have no idea how feasible.
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(03-20-2019, 09:45 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:
(03-20-2019, 09:37 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Or scaled up, with a larger office building footprint. Or with a condo tower added.

If you need to go to the expense of building a (large!) underground parking garage, you will want to max out the benefit from that, and that may mean a larger building. In which case the residents may have got what they asked for (no parking garage next door) but still be unhappy with what they do get (an even taller office building next door).

Is a larger building feasible? I'm not sure what the city parking requirements are here (I very much hope they are zero), but who ever will occupy the building will want parking. Building size is likely limited by parking, an underground lot will be smaller, and likely limit the size of the building.

Implementing a condo/apartment tower would be a possible modification if it was possible to share parking, which is a good idea, but I have no idea how feasible.

An underground lot will be more expensive (per space), for sure. But how large (and deep) it is really depends on how much parking the developer wants.

Anyway, my point was to be careful what you ask for, because you just might get exactly that. Smile
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Kitchener looking at better uses for city-owned parking lots
Quote:Kitchener plans to sell at least one downtown parcel within the next year, as part of a bigger plan to use city-owned land for things like economic development of affordable housing.
...
Kitchener has 13 city-run surface parking lots with about 1,400 spots in the downtown, as well as five parking garages. The surface lots, though, don't contribute much to the life of a city, Bluhm said. "We know the highest and best use, long-term, is not for them to stay as parking lots."
...
One promising spot is near the Innovation District, where the city owns two parking lots once used as the Bramm Street public works yards. Its chief assets are location — close to Communitech and the medical and pharmacy campuses — and its size. The two lots, with parking for about 265 vehicles, could easily accommodate five office towers, Bluhm said.

"It's always been viewed as the best asset we have for downtown," he said. But they aren't readily available: they are leased for three years to provide parking for employees of the Breithaupt Block.

Another area ripe for redevelopment is the area near Centre in the Square, where the city owns four parking lots.
https://www.therecord.com/news-story/960...king-lots/
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I've always been really excited about the potential for development in the Civic District and it's parking lots.
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(09-18-2019, 01:17 PM)Spokes Wrote: Kitchener looking at better uses for city-owned parking lots

https://www.therecord.com/news-story/960...king-lots/

I like the idea of the city selling off surface parking lots, but this line concerns me
Quote:Those aspirations Bluhm refers to still haven't been worked out, but they could include things like what he calls "a globally relevant office park,"

An office park suggests a very suburban single-use way of thinking about redeveloping the Bramm St yards. I think the surface lots that are in the central core make a lot of sense to redevelop now. Like at Water/Charles, and at Charles/Gaukel. That creates an opportunity for a proper mixed use development, with ground floor retail and office above, and slowly expanding the retail/restaurant space beyond King St. A 20, or even 30, storey office building could easily be supported on either of those sites, and would build more than enough office space for current demand. The Bramm St yards are just too far from the King St corridor to support a good mixed-used development for probably another 10 years, and that's fine. The current downtown core is plenty big enough to support intensification within it. A policy of expanding the King St retail/restaurant corridor, property by property, until it reaches the Bramm St yards is exactly the kind of long term thinking the city should be doing.
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The Bram Street yards would be ideal for a convention centre/office/condo towers. The location is very accessible via Victoria street. Plus with the future transportation hub right there.....
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(09-18-2019, 02:31 PM)Rainrider22 Wrote: The Bram Street yards would be ideal for a convention centre/office/condo towers.  The location is very accessible via Victoria street. Plus with the future transportation hub right there.....

I think the point is that the Bramm Lots are ~10 minute walk from Central Station.  There are many other parking lots that could be developed first that are closer and will support a higher density today.  And developing Bramm into a low density use right now would be a bad plan.  A large dense development would be fine, but given how much closer space there is, may not be feasible.
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From the article Wrote:One challenge, Bluhm conceded, is that many local residents aren't keen on parking garages.

Does anyone know if more information about this resistance is available online? I imagine it's a combination of security, aesthetics and lots of other factors and I'm interested in what those factors may be.
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(09-18-2019, 02:39 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:
(09-18-2019, 02:31 PM)Rainrider22 Wrote: The Bram Street yards would be ideal for a convention centre/office/condo towers.  The location is very accessible via Victoria street. Plus with the future transportation hub right there.....

I think the point is that the Bramm Lots are ~10 minute walk from Central Station.  There are many other parking lots that could be developed first that are closer and will support a higher density today.  And developing Bramm into a low density use right now would be a bad plan.  A large dense development would be fine, but given how much closer space there is, may not be feasible.
I totally get that,,, What I am saying is that a mixed use with the primary function of a convention centre is perfect there..   I think it would be difficult to do a development like that on the other lots.
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(09-18-2019, 02:02 PM)taylortbb Wrote:
(09-18-2019, 01:17 PM)Spokes Wrote: Kitchener looking at better uses for city-owned parking lots

https://www.therecord.com/news-story/960...king-lots/

I like the idea of the city selling off surface parking lots, but this line concerns me
Quote:Those aspirations Bluhm refers to still haven't been worked out, but they could include things like what he calls "a globally relevant office park,"

An office park suggests a very suburban single-use way of thinking about redeveloping the Bramm St yards. I think the surface lots that are in the central core make a lot of sense to redevelop now. Like at Water/Charles, and at Charles/Gaukel. That creates an opportunity for a proper mixed use development, with ground floor retail and office above, and slowly expanding the retail/restaurant space beyond King St. A 20, or even 30, storey office building could easily be supported on either of those sites, and would build more than enough office space for current demand. The Bramm St yards are just too far from the King St corridor to support a good mixed-used development for probably another 10 years, and that's fine. The current downtown core is plenty big enough to support intensification within it. A policy of expanding the King St retail/restaurant corridor, property by property, until it reaches the Bramm St yards is exactly the kind of long term thinking the city should be doing.

I didn't love that quote either.  Especially because they specifically reference Evolv1 which should not be a goal for DTK

I too have always had high hopes for the lot directly across from Charlie West
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(09-18-2019, 03:14 PM)Spokes Wrote:
(09-18-2019, 02:02 PM)taylortbb Wrote: I like the idea of the city selling off surface parking lots, but this line concerns me

An office park suggests a very suburban single-use way of thinking about redeveloping the Bramm St yards. I think the surface lots that are in the central core make a lot of sense to redevelop now. Like at Water/Charles, and at Charles/Gaukel. That creates an opportunity for a proper mixed use development, with ground floor retail and office above, and slowly expanding the retail/restaurant space beyond King St. A 20, or even 30, storey office building could easily be supported on either of those sites, and would build more than enough office space for current demand. The Bramm St yards are just too far from the King St corridor to support a good mixed-used development for probably another 10 years, and that's fine. The current downtown core is plenty big enough to support intensification within it. A policy of expanding the King St retail/restaurant corridor, property by property, until it reaches the Bramm St yards is exactly the kind of long term thinking the city should be doing.

I didn't love that quote either.  Especially because they specifically reference Evolv1 which should not be a goal for DTK

I too have always had high hopes for the lot directly across from Charlie West

My hopes for that block are even more ambitious: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NvS_-T...sp=sharing

Yes, Evolv1 would be terrible, I don't think much of it in the R&T Park.
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(09-18-2019, 02:31 PM)Rainrider22 Wrote: The Bram Street yards would be ideal for a convention centre/office/condo towers. The location is very accessible via Victoria street. Plus with the future transportation hub right there.....

A Kitchener convention centre would have a lot of local competition with London, Niagara Falls, Hamilton, and Toronto.
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