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Manulife Development Project
#1
I'll get all of the old posts moved over shortly
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#2
I think it's safe to say that the floors of office space in the podium will be Manulife offices.  I wonder if this will be a relocation from King Center, or an expansion.  

I've never been in the old KC since Manulife took it over but I have a hard time picturing what it would look like as office space
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#3
(12-02-2017, 05:44 PM)Spokes Wrote: I think it's safe to say that the floors of office space in the podium will be Manulife offices.  I wonder if this will be a relocation from King Center, or an expansion.  

I've never been in the old KC since Manulife took it over but I have a hard time picturing what it would look like as office space

I don't know that that is necessarily the case, especially after all the renovation and expansion that they've done at the King Centre.  I suppose they could use the opportunity to consolidate some of the other offices they have around town.

I still hope that someday the tower will be built on the King Centre podium!
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#4
The only part of the inside that reminds me of an 80's mall is the very narrow escalators. Everything else is fairly modern, bright, and open, mostly full of cubicles.
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#5
From what I gather from this quote from The Record article is that Manulife is not currently looking to fill at least all of the office component of this potential project with their employees :

"We have also begun to gauge interest in the proposed project with potential office and retail tenants to determine feasibility of the project," said MacLean.
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#6
(12-02-2017, 06:34 PM)panamaniac Wrote:
(12-02-2017, 05:44 PM)Spokes Wrote: I think it's safe to say that the floors of office space in the podium will be Manulife offices.  I wonder if this will be a relocation from King Center, or an expansion.  

I've never been in the old KC since Manulife took it over but I have a hard time picturing what it would look like as office space

I don't know that that is necessarily the case, especially after all the renovation and expansion that they've done at the King Centre.  I suppose they could use the opportunity to consolidate some of the other offices they have around town.

I still hope that someday the tower will be built on the King Centre podium!

Ever since I found out it was structurally built to hold a tower I've held out hope for this too
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#7
(12-03-2017, 10:48 AM)Spokes Wrote:
(12-02-2017, 06:34 PM)panamaniac Wrote: I don't know that that is necessarily the case, especially after all the renovation and expansion that they've done at the King Centre.  I suppose they could use the opportunity to consolidate some of the other offices they have around town.

I still hope that someday the tower will be built on the King Centre podium!

Ever since I found out it was structurally built to hold a tower I've held out hope for this too

Wow... was this part of the original plan for KC? I wonder if there's a model or illustration of it somewhere!
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#8
(12-06-2017, 10:35 AM)urbd Wrote:
(12-03-2017, 10:48 AM)Spokes Wrote: Ever since I found out it was structurally built to hold a tower I've held out hope for this too

Wow... was this part of the original plan for KC? I wonder if there's a model or illustration of it somewhere!

Yes, it was part of the original plan.  The structure at the corner of Water and Charles is actually the base of the tower.  Iirc, it would have been 12 storeys.
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#9
I couldn't find any pictures online of the King Centre/King City Mall, but I did find a couple articles on the general topic of the Downtown redevelopment.

"The struggle for the centre: one city's adventure with modernity," by Nick Storring and, "Local Power and Its Limits: Three Decades of Attempts to Revitalize Kitchener's CBD," by Pierre Filion and Trudi Bunting.

The first is more philosphical and the latter is more academic including a short review of how downtown Kitchener's CBD ended up where it diD.
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#10
That second article, even if somewhat academic, is a great read to get perspective on 55 years (!) of attempting to revive the downtown core, and the number of false starts and community pushbacks.
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#11
(12-08-2017, 05:56 PM)nms Wrote: I couldn't find any pictures online of the King Centre/King City Mall, but I did find a couple articles on the general topic of the Downtown redevelopment.

"The struggle for the centre: one city's adventure with modernity," by Nick Storring and, "Local Power and Its Limits: Three Decades of Attempts to Revitalize Kitchener's CBD," by Pierre Filion and Trudi Bunting.

The first is more philosphical and the latter is more academic including a short review of how downtown Kitchener's CBD ended up where it di.

Thanks for linking the articles! Fillion and Bunting were two of my favourite professors at UW. I can still hear Pierre's French Canadian accent in the back of my head discussing Andres Duany and New Urbanism.
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#12
Has anyone seen a render of this project?
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#13
(12-12-2017, 07:45 AM)rangersfan Wrote: Has anyone seen a render of this project?

I might have, but I thought it was apartments/condo's...so I never really made a huge mental note of it. There is a lot more stuff going on in DTKitchener that's not listed here, but whether or not any of that stuff comes to fruition is another story.

BTW: Regarding Kitchener City Hall - who here recalls that the tower portion was designed that it could take on additional floors? I can't recall how many extra floors, but reminds me of King Centre. Anyway, wondering if building code has changed enough that this sort of thing won't happen now.
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#14
(12-02-2017, 05:42 PM)Spokes Wrote: I'll get all of the old posts moved over shortly

Could one of the mods please do this?
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#15
(12-12-2017, 08:20 AM)jeffster Wrote:
(12-12-2017, 07:45 AM)rangersfan Wrote: Has anyone seen a render of this project?

I might have, but I thought it was apartments/condo's...so I never really made a huge mental note of it.  There is a lot more stuff going on in DTKitchener that's not listed here, but whether or not any of that stuff comes to fruition is another story.

BTW: Regarding Kitchener City Hall - who here recalls that the tower portion was designed that it could take on additional floors? I can't recall how many extra floors, but reminds me of King Centre. Anyway, wondering if building code has changed enough that this sort of thing won't happen now.

That's a new one to me.
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