Bramm Yards Master Plan

[Acitta]

Bramm Yards Master Plan
The Bramm Yards is a City-owned parking lot in Downtown Kitchener. At eight acres in size, it is the largest remaining parcel of land the City owns that can be used to support future employment.

In the City’s Official Plan(External link), the Bramm Yards are part of the Urban Growth Centre. This means that these lands are expected to accommodate higher intensity, mixed-use development. The Bramm Yards are also part of the Innovation District(External link). This means that these lands are expected to accommodate major office developments.

We are creating a Master Plan that will guide future development at the Bramm Yards site (55 Bramm Street and 130 Park Street). The City’s goal is to transform this parking lot into an urban business park to accommodate hundreds of future jobs.

Edit: There is a survey at the link.

[panamaniac]

Only 8 acres? For some reason I thought it was more.

[tomh009]

750,000 sqft of employment space in eight acres. Had to do some conversion, that's about 70,000 m^2 of space in 3.2 hectares (32,000 m^2) of land. That's a FAR of only about 2.2 for the employment space, not very high. One would hope to see substantial additional housing (or public spaces) in addition to the employment space.

Unlike Station Park or Metz, in this case the city owns the land and would be able to set criteria and direction for the project. Hopefully that would give us a more desirable outcome.

[CP42]

Was hoping to see this site be used for a new arena/entertainment venue and then we could have put the new hospital where the Aud currently resides with easy access to the expressway.

[SF22]

Was hoping to see this site be used for a new arena/entertainment venue and then we could have put the new hospital where the Aud currently resides with easy access to the expressway.

I don't think they'd put it at the Bramm Yards because it's just far enough away from the highway to be inconvenient for anyone arriving by car, especially considering the rumours that they want to narrow Victoria from 4 to 2 lanes in the future. Although it would be nice for the future Aud to have good access to lots of nearby restaurants for before/after events.

(I think they'll end up buying/relying on donated land for the new Aud if they choose to move locations - to get it near the highway and the LRT, you pretty much will have to put it where Concordia is now, maybe pick up a bunch of properties off Hoffman.)

I was actually kind of surprised that they wanted to turn Bramm Yards into office space. Haven't we been hearing that there's too much empty office space in DTK already? That's why Europro at 22 Frederick wanted to turn that whole building into residential units to start with. Would at least really like to see them making a central pedestrian plaza with trees and tables and coffee shops/restaurants facing directly onto the plaza for workers to have lunch at, away from vehicle traffic.

[cherrypark]

I think it has been envisioned as a tech park since early to mid 2010s when the downtown masterplan was last updated. I can't find it quickly, but there were concept renderings of a typical 4-5 story tech park from the early 2000s in those concept images.

Personally would be a little let down if that is all it becomes especially with all the development downtown and potential for more recreation space. There aren't a lot of large plots left that are city owned. You would think the recent experience trying to play landlord at the train station would have made them a little more shy to try that again.

[Lebronj23]

I vote something like ‘The Well’ in Toronto. A mix of everything, office, residential, retail, restaurants, public realm, community space. Obviously not to the scale but something similar would be crazy here! 

https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/to...1/page-356

   

[Acitta]

Those commenting should put their ideas in the survey. Now is the time to do it.

[ac3r]

No way we'd get something like that here haha. We struggle to fill the existing office and commercial spaces downtown, so much so that an entire office tower was handed over to Conestoga College to turn into student housing. We're not a global city so you're not going to see massive mixed used projects like that in or by this city.

I'd expect them to design something with more low to midrise...something similar to the Dublin Docklands with a few 4-6 floor buildings, open space for people to use, maybe a small amount of retail or something. Not really a destination, just a place to work. They're obviously not aiming to build a massive mixed use space with skyscrapers and stuff.

A master plan doesn't mean much anyway, it just gives a vague idea of something. What actually gets built would depend heavily on what the city can afford and has the will power to do...which would probably very mediocre.

[Lebronj23]

I will continue to dream. Couldn’t the region use the money? Sell it for top dollar, could probably fetch 80mill for it, and basically fund the transit hub

[tomh009]

I will continue to dream. Couldn’t the region use the money? Sell it for top dollar, could probably fetch 80mill for it, and basically fund the transit hub

This one is the City of Kitchener, I believe.

[westwardloo]

I will continue to dream. Couldn’t the region use the money? Sell it for top dollar, could probably fetch 80mill for it, and basically fund the transit hub

If the City were to sell if for top dollar, I would prefer they establish the road system first and severe the property into lots. They could then sell them off individually and make more than 80mil and could even hold onto a lot or two for affordable housing. The added benefit of this is we wouldn't have Auburn designing major blocks of our city with Beige Stucco towers that take 2 decades to complete. 

As tomh009 previously mentioned transit hub is a regional project and this is a city owned property. Another reason for Amalgamation though.

[tomh009]

Agree on the suggestion to make the plan for roads and MUTs (and parks!) first and break it into smaller pieces before selling the land.

Yes, amalgamation would make this simpler.

[dtkmelissa]

I will continue to dream. Couldn’t the region use the money? Sell it for top dollar, could probably fetch 80mill for it, and basically fund the transit hub

I really struggle with the idea of our cities selling off land to private developers. I also have lots of ideas of how we could use that money if we sold off the land, but it still feels like not the best option to me. I'm also not sure it's a good move for cities to sell land to private developers while not giving land back to Indigenous communities. What do others see as the benefits or downsides of selling city-owned land?

[bravado]

Selling city owned land is not my favourite idea. Surely we can use communal land to increase the services and value and tax efficiency of these neighbourhoods so that transit hubs can be paid for by better neighbourhoods?