Strata | 16 & 22 fl | Proposed

[CP42]

Seeing ads for this project again which claims to be “Coming Soon - October 2023” which leads me to believe they just failed to make any substantial sales and are now just acting like it never happened?

[ac3r]

I wouldn't be surprised, it was going to be an expensive building with prices that make zero sense at all for "uptown". Downtown? Sure, you could build a few of these but uptown is for kids.

[Ellensparky]

Has anything started in this site? I received an email stating Occupancy 2027. 😳

[westwardloo]

Has anything started in this site? I received an email stating Occupancy 2027. 😳

There is fencing and billboards of the building at the site, but I haven't seen movement on this since summer.

[Spokes]

Seems to be in line with 2027 😬

[tomh009]

It'll be the sixth anniversary of this thread on Thursday 😊

[urbd]

It'll be the sixth anniversary of this thread on Thursday 😊

Ridiculous. Uptown Waterloo is so stagnant in terms of development... nothing seems to be able to take off.

[ac3r]

The city doesn't seem to want any of them to take off directly uptown, so they get derailed and die off.

Remember the tall glass office tower at 87 Regina? The really nice VanMar nearby? The towers that were going to go at The Atrium? The tower that was going to go on Dorset? There were some I know of being planned along Regina but ultimately the developers didn't want to apply, because the city is so damn hard to work with. The only major project I can think of that has been approved in the last few years (besides this one) is 203 King South but similarly it could end up meeting the same fate 87 Regina did: win approval, only to immediately die and never be heard of again.

Developers are choosing Kitchener over Waterloo because they can at least have the confidence they will win approval, sell units/lease space and run a successful building in that city.

[bravado]

The city doesn't seem to want any of them to take off directly uptown, so they get derailed and die off.

Remember the tall glass office tower at 87 Regina? The really nice VanMar nearby? The towers that were going to go at The Atrium? The tower that was going to go on Dorset? There were some I know of being planned along Regina but ultimately the developers didn't want to apply, because the city is so damn hard to work with. The only major project I can think of that has been approved in the last few years (besides this one) is 203 King South but similarly it could end up meeting the same fate 87 Regina did: win approval, only to immediately die and never be heard of again.

Developers are choosing Kitchener over Waterloo because they can at least have the confidence they will win approval, sell units/lease space and run a successful building in that city.

Kitchener is doing so many more right things (or at least less bad things) and I am fascinated for the future when Waterloo and Cambridge both realize they've ceded political power in the region to Kitchener by their anti-growth bullshit. Looking forward to the NIMBY shock and tears in the future about something that was clearly obvious at the time. Mississauga vs Brampton 2.0.

[nms]

Does anyone know for certain that Strata is being help up by Waterloo City Hall, or (like much of what happens in this forum), is it pure speculation? There is lots of development happening elsewhere in the City, so I can't believe that City Hall is the culprit here (or for the other projects in a3er's post).

[CP42]

Does anyone know for certain that Strata is being help up by Waterloo City Hall, or (like much of what happens in this forum), is it pure speculation?  There is lots of development happening elsewhere in the City, so I can't believe that City Hall is the culprit here (or for the other projects in a3er's post).

Seeing as they’ve tried selling units multiple times, my take would be they just haven’t sold enough to begin construction.

[ac3r]

For me, it's mostly just a difference in between Kitchener and Waterloo. It's obviously a lot easier to sell condo units downtown Kitchener than it is uptown Waterloo and that's demonstrated by the sheer number of condo projects downtown (but also rental apartments). Waterloo may have built a lot of towers over the last few years, they are primarily tiny 1 bedroom short term rental apartments geared towards the thousands of kids who are studying at university. There's a completely different market, culture and vibe in Waterloo versus Kitchener. Waterloo - at least to me - does not seem like the kind of place first time buyers are looking at and therefore it's hard to sell units in a new building uptown when uptown still feels like a tiny main street in generic small town Ontario but with the addition of thousands of young zoomers everywhere you go. Since Waterloo dragged its feet, uptown did not evolve in any significant way whereas downtown has changed so much it's almost unrecognizable.

[nms]

Kitchener has always had a larger, walkable commercial footprint than Waterloo. When Waterloo expanded its footprint post-WWII, a lot of the commercial activity ended up outside the Uptown Core which was still dominated by factories (Seagram's, Labatts and others along Caroline St) and only a few major commercial tenants (eg Mutual Life). I'm thinking of the car-centric hubs that were the Towers Plaza, Westmount Plaza and later Conestoga Mall. It took a while, but University Ave has been very commercially active between the railway tracks and Weber St (or Marsland if you want to stretch it). Uptown Waterloo was also hemmed in by the CN railyard to the east at Regina St, the Kitchener border to the South, the floodplain that pretty much limited any kind of development from the edge of Waterloo Park in the west to close to Weber St in the east. This affected what could actually built without reaching into the surrounding neighbourhoods. I wouldn't say that Waterloo dragged its feet so much as the geography wasn't attractive to development. Add to that the University district/Northdale was more attractive for development through City policy and general economics, and Uptown was not as easy pickings for development.

If you were to compare the nightlife of Waterloo with that of Kitchener, Waterloo is generally pretty active while Kitchener has been fairly quiet the few times that I have been down there in the evenings. I would argue that in some ways because Waterloo's housing stock is generally smaller, geared towards students, and intended for temporary living (eg 3-4 years tops), that Waterloo residents are often more inclined to go out on the town than to stay home.

[ac3r]

In the end I don't see a huge problem with this, at least. There's no actual reason why uptown needs to have towers and skyscrapers all over the place. It mostly works okay the way it is. There is plenty of room for improvement, but there's no reason why it can't stay a lower density area with higher density focused both downtown and the Northdale neighbourhood. It's still connected to transit, has nice wide sidewalks, bike lanes, trails/paths and so on.

[Vojnik_Vahaj]

Yes. It just really struck me that all the densification in Waterloo has been outside the central core to date.

Absolutely.  The change is happening though and there was always a plan to increase density in the central core (at least what I have heard from city staff in the past).  I think politicians/councillors have just been trending lightly, siding with NIMBYs until now.  That being said, there's still many buildings I hope they strive to maintain.  I also hope they maintain the overall street front feel of King, if not expand it towards Central Street.  Perhaps one day parts of King Street in Uptown Waterloo may start to look like this...

I wish. This is what uptown/downtown cores should look like.