Downtown Kitchener Fire Station | ?fl | Proposed

[ZEBuilder]

During last night's State of the City address the Mayor announced the location of the new fire station (#8) which they've been thinking of for a couple of years now.

It's located at 450/470 King St E, which is the King and Madison corner. 470 is the old B & T before it moved across the street and then 450 is the building containing the Sushi Stars restaurant and an auto shop.

It's planned on including the fire station as well as at least 150 affordable housing units. These units will be a mix of 1-3 bdrm units.

They haven't started any design work yet so there's very little information beyond this. The property is zoned SGA 2 in Growing Together which would allow for a midrise development up to 8 floors however with Growing Together not approved yet it's still on 85-1 which would allow for a building with a max FSR of 4.0 and a height of 24m (roughly 8 floors with 3m floor heights).

Here's the Record article: New Downtown Fire Station

[westwardloo]

This is good new for the downtown/ east end community. 

150 units is quite a few, this would probably end up being around 15-20 stories.

[tomh009]

This is good new for the downtown/ east end community. 

150 units is quite a few, this would probably end up being around 15-20 stories.

It's a big footprint, 0.55 ha, they could certainly do 150+ units in 10 stories or fewer, of course depending on the unit size.

[panamaniac]

There goes my hope for a new park/plaza on that block.

[ZEBuilder]

This is good new for the downtown/ east end community. 

150 units is quite a few, this would probably end up being around 15-20 stories.

It's definitely possible to make 150 units fit on the site without going up to 15 floors you don't even have to go to 10.

Here's a quick mock up of 2 buildings on site with a 1 floor podium across the entire site (including the fire station). This would be 2 midrises each 7 floors ontop of a 1 floor podium. In this mockup the podium is for the fire station/commercial/garbage/parking access/amenity space/community space. In this case you can have 36 3Bdrm units each approx 1200 sqft, 66 2bdrm units each approx 1000 sqft, and 56 1bdrm units each approx 800 sqft. Which would allow for 158 units however these are certainly bigger than your typically market units generally by about 100-200 sqft each so you could fit more.

The setbacks from adjacent properties are up to SGA-2 standards and the buildings themselves are separated by approx 60ft which can definitely be closer together if the midrise is set back from the edge of the podium fronting King. The midrises themselves have slightly smaller floor plates then that of Civic 66. The midrises are cyan, the podium is marked in pink and is the max extent a building could be as per the setbacks.

Mockup:
   

[westwardloo]

Interesting, didn't realize how big the two site are. I that case I feel like they should push the number of units to 300. Make 150 of them kitchener housing (Typically well below market rate) then partner with a market rental company to rent the other 150 (at market rate). 

Seem like they have the room, we my as well maximize the use.

[ZEBuilder]

Interesting, didn't realize how big the two site are. I that case I feel like they should push the number of units to 300. Make 150 of them kitchener housing (Typically well below market rate) then partner with a market rental company to rent the other 150 (at market rate). 

Seem like they have the room, we my as well maximize the use.

Sure they could build taller to fit in more units or make smaller units but either way you will have to go taller to hit 300 units. In order to do so the city would require a ZBA to change from SGA 2 to 3 and then potentially an OPA depending on the official plan designation since SGA 2 zoning can apply to SGA A areas but SGA 3 needs to be SGA B or C areas, I just haven't checked to see which area it is.

Regardless the city spent months making the Growing Together designation so would it really make sense for them to not follow their own zoning and official plan rules that they made?