General Urban Waterloo Updates and Rumours

[danbrotherston]

They may look better, but it's still apparent you are facing a garage.  You'd have to have a pretty big development to completely encircle the inner garage with active uses on the outside (if such a thing is even possible within building codes), which is the only way I see a garage facade not being a net negative.

But certainly you are right that they can be better or worse.

That's what 1 Victoria and 144 Park do -- they have units on the outside, facing the street. I think only on the street-facing sides, but it's still an improvement.

Even DTK has units on the Duke St side of the podium. Sadly they don't make the building look much better.

SOME streets...they have units facing SOME streets.  144 Park still has a full garage facade facing Caroline, which I think significantly diminishes the Bauer Lofts plaza (although Bauer lofts does a pretty good job of that with their surface parking anyway). 1 Victoria is much better than 144 Park with the garage facade facing only half on Victoria St, and on Halls Ln and the Parking lot.  Mostly it isn't inactivating a streetscape, and is only visible from places like my building or walking up the Laneway.

Like I said, it can be done better, but it is still a net negative on the building.