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+--- Thread: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours (/showthread.php?tid=8)
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RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - panamaniac - 12-31-2015
(12-31-2015, 11:27 AM)MidTowner Wrote: Fantastic stuff. I wonder whether, when the article says "will be leased to a tenant with a global brand," that means they have someone in mind, or that's the goal? I'm very curious to see who winds up here.
I read it as meaning that a specific tenant has been identified.
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - GtwoK - 12-31-2015
There were some renders of the plans on this forum months ago! Can't remember if it was this thread or another - either way, the links went down a day or two after being posted. Possibly just expired, though also possible that they were never supposed to be posted in the first place. They looked amazing though.
Whoever posted those, if you see this... repost them
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - MidTowner - 12-31-2015
(12-31-2015, 11:37 AM)panamaniac Wrote: I read it as meaning that a specific tenant has been identified.
What's the definition of a "professional services organization" anyway? Is that a law or accounting firm? Or just any B2B? "Tenant with a global brand" made me think of Facebook since there were rumours of a Kitchener office for them, but they don't fit the bill.
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - Pheidippides - 12-31-2015
There was fencing and work being done this week when I passed by.
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - tomh009 - 12-31-2015
(12-31-2015, 11:46 AM)MidTowner Wrote:(12-31-2015, 11:37 AM)panamaniac Wrote: I read it as meaning that a specific tenant has been identified.
What's the definition of a "professional services organization" anyway? Is that a law or accounting firm? Or just any B2B? "Tenant with a global brand" made me think of Facebook since there were rumours of a Kitchener office for them, but they don't fit the bill.
Generally a firm providing billable services. Accounting, consulting, legal ... medical professional on the outside, but usually that's considered separately.
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - Lens - 12-31-2015
Hopefully they follow through on some of these conceptual elements!
![[Image: df07f509e7994ba38cb68b145323f859.jpg]](http://x.lnimg.com/photo/poster_768/df07f509e7994ba38cb68b145323f859.jpg)
![[Image: 1efc2f2da6614ff78101e01a866e156a.jpg]](http://x.lnimg.com/photo/poster_768/1efc2f2da6614ff78101e01a866e156a.jpg)
![[Image: b486678faad240e5ae79d65a44fd3150.jpg]](http://x.lnimg.com/photo/poster_768/b486678faad240e5ae79d65a44fd3150.jpg)
![[Image: d8de028749e14d67a748b7b8c12b8571.jpg]](http://x.lnimg.com/photo/poster_768/d8de028749e14d67a748b7b8c12b8571.jpg)
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - KevinL - 12-31-2015
That concept is VERY cool.
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - notmyfriends - 01-01-2016
One of the comments on the Record article there said "Evidently they are going to add 8 floors to it and have a massive fireplace to Utilize the chimney"... for whatever value you should put into anonymous comments on a Record article...
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - The85 - 01-01-2016
(12-31-2015, 06:51 PM)Lens Wrote: Hopefully they follow through on some of these conceptual elements!
Very cool. Where did you find these Lens?
Just a reminder to all that any photos that are posted in the forums that are not your own should have a link to or citation of the original source.
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - Spokes - 01-02-2016
(01-01-2016, 02:23 AM)notmyfriends Wrote: One of the comments on the Record article there said "Evidently they are going to add 8 floors to it and have a massive fireplace to Utilize the chimney"... for whatever value you should put into anonymous comments on a Record article...
Wow this seems ambitious. Would love to see it but would be surprised.
That being said, I'd love to see what's designed in the above images.
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - tomh009 - 01-09-2016
(12-02-2015, 06:00 PM)panamaniac Wrote: There's an impressive amount of work happening in that area at the moment - this building, the Walper, and 8 Queen N under active renovation, the basement renovation at Darlisle Café (soon, one hopes), the east end of the American Hotel block being rebuilt (slowly), the Berlin and the Amaya Indian restaurants (wants to open this year, but city permits may delay until early 2016) on King St . Not to mention the possible renovation of more of the American Hotel block.
It appears that they are putting a wood (wood-look?) facade, similar to the Working Centre next door; see picture below.
(On the topic of Amaya, they now have a proper sign, but no indication of an actual opening date.)
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - ookpik - 01-12-2016
Kitchener to put contaminated factory site up for sale
Quote: The city's legal department plans to sell a long-empty industrial building in a bid to collect back taxes.
The property, which includes a four-storey brick building and a newer adjoining structure, has sat essentially empty for decades at the corner of Shanley and Duke streets. It's a contaminated, boarded-up eyesore in the midst of a residential neighbourhood.
The city plans to advertise the property at 152 Shanley St. for sale for "around $1 million" in late March or early April, said Lesley MacDonald, the city's solicitor...
Anyone buying the property will face a hefty environmental cleanup bill. The Ministry of the Environment ordered the site cleaned in 2007, and registered the cleanup order on the property title in 2008.
"We are well aware of 152 Shanley St.," said Greta Najcler, district supervisor at the ministry's Guelph office.
The soil and groundwater on the property have "elevated concentrations of metals, petroleum hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds and trichloroethylene (TCE)," an industrial degreaser, Najcler said.
"Should the property be purchased, any future owner will be required to fulfil the requirements of the order to address contamination on-site," Najcler said...
So a potential buyer, in addition to paying at least $1million for the property would also be on the hook for "a hefty environmental cleanup bill" of unspecified heft.
Meanwhile the neighbours have to live near a property that was classified as [I'm being a bit hyperbolic here, but only a bit] a toxic waste dump almost a decade ago.
If the current owner won't clean up their mess then why doesn't the city do it for them and add the cost to the accumulated taxes? At least that way the contamination will get cleaned up, something that has to happen eventually, in any case. Or can this situation remain unresolved for another decade?
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - MidTowner - 01-12-2016
(01-12-2016, 10:04 AM)ookpik Wrote: Or can this situation remain unresolved for another decade?
I bet it can, unfortunately. I agree with you that the City should undertake the remediation and add it to the current owner's liability. I've personally never seen anything resembling an estimate of the cost to remediate- it's always described in terms like "hefty," "significant," whatever- and it's a bit shameful that this has drawn on for so long. I personally think the City of Kitchener needs to get creative with this one, and undertake the remediation itself, and zone it in a way that would make it attractive to a potential buyer. The neighbourhood will likely not push back on redevelopment after suffering the toxic waste dump (you're right that that's exactly what was being done here for quite a while) for years.
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - Markster - 01-12-2016
Yeah, with remediation being an unfixed, unknown number right now, any potential buyer is basically going to assume it's as bad as theoretically possible, and subtract that from the market value. Is that still over $1M? Maybe?
A few blocks away, the region paid $4.7M/ha just for land for the intermodal terminal.
This site is about 0.32 ha
That's ~$1.5M in land value, optimistically.
RE: General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours - Viewfromthe42 - 01-12-2016
Depending on how far you want to go between as-built re-use and complete demolition (knowing the latter to not really be an option or likely for this site), the remediation costs could change drastically. It's one thing to have to pull all the contaminant out of a structure or structure-covered ground that you're also removing, while another to fully preserve everything. So if the city were to remediate such that the structure remained unchanged, the remediation costs would be at their highest, but would eliminate many potential developers who may have wanted to partially preserve, partially modify the building, but would need that cheaper remediation to be reflected in the price, which the city would have already built the most expensive remediation into. I mean, I'd love it if in general, the utilities built (and priced) into brownfield non-remediation sites nearly precluded low-density options, but we know the general built profile for this site, and as a tricky one, we should leave as many possibilities open as we can.