321 Spruce Street | 35m | 7 fl | U/C

[insider]

What I'm really, really curious about is to see how Northdale will evolve in the next 10+ years. Beside development, I wonder how will it grow socially, as a neighbourhood and how it will integrate with the rest of the city. What kinds of businesses will open and be supported, how much of the convertible frontages will be converted to commercial and how many will stay as residential, what will happen with the rest of the older low density houses and orphaned lots - will new, independent businesses open like a bed and breakfast, a small breakfast place, etc... and of course how will the demographics evolve? So far I know that around 10% of residents in some of the newly built projects after the rezoning are occupied by their owners (young professionals)... then the question about ethnic diversity as well. I'm really excited to see all this evolving!

[Spokes]

I like Luxe II and maybe Sage I/II but that's about it along King which has been ruined IMO between Columbia and University.

ruined sort of implies that it was nice to begin with, which it never was. It had these small houses abutting the main street in town. Completely out of proportion with the dimensions of the street or its purpose. Main street should be zoned mixed commercial for its entire length, with no setback. That is the exact opposite of what that part of King St. used to be.

That's a good point.  Ruined the chance for it to be anything decent I should say.

[nms]

What I'm really, really curious about is to see how Northdale will evolve in the next 10+ years...

Hopefully, the mess that is the west side of King Street has inspired the right mix of people (neighbours, owners, community members, politicians, staff) to begin to have the right kinds of conversations about what the neighbourhood will look like.  Some of it may be master planned top-down initiatives like the streetscape plans, others will be smaller scale (eg a pot luck street party).

[Spokes]

Has the east side of King been zoned for ground floor retail yet?

[plam]

Has the east side of King been zoned for ground floor retail yet?

Speaking of ground floor retail, I was reading some stuff on the web about property development in Bulgaria. British people had the idea of investing there, I think pre-2008. They were complaining that Bulgarian developers would keep on putting in space for ground-floor retail... (Well, part of the problem was that no one quite seemed to have an idea what to put into said ground floor retail).

[Markster]

Has the east side of King been zoned for ground floor retail yet?

I don't think so.
It looks like it's still MR-25, which only allows a very limited set of non-residential uses.
http://www.waterloo.ca/en/contentresourc..._bylaw.pdf (page 106)

However, now that the new Official Plan is in place, it looks like city staff are supportive of zoning changes requesting "ancillary commercial uses". King St between Lodge and Elgin is MR-25, but K2 is going up with commercial, and there are more zoning changes to support commercial on the way:
http://www.waterloo.ca/en/contentresourc...report.pdf
http://www.waterloo.ca/en/business/151_king_st_n.asp
The commercial aspect does not appear to be an issue for either of those.

That said, it's still an extra hurdle that some developers may not wish to bother with.

[tomh009]

That said, it's still an extra hurdle that some developers may not wish to bother with.

Yes, it should be encouraged (if not actually mandated), not discouraged.