Kraus Development (525-565 Conestogo Road) | 3-35 fl | Proposed

[nms]

How does the loss of Industrial Land and/or Employment Land fit within Waterloo's overall plan? For instance, the existing space could be attractive to someone such as Clearpath Robotics or another manufacturer that can't fit in existing office spaces. I know that "additive manufacturing" (aka 3D Printing) is a growing industrial+high-tech industry, but it can't be fit in office-type spaces due to a variety of health and safety reasons.

[ijmorlan]

Also I would just point out that any talk of tunnelling under the LRT facility is completely missing the point of what Dan is suggesting. As I said, I’m skeptical of tunnelling vs. bridging, even though he raises some interesting points, but a quick look at the map will instantly reveal that he cannot reasonably be interpreted to be proposing to tunnel under the LRT facility. The tunnel would be around 70m at most and due to the elevation of the highway vs. surrounding land the exit ramps at either end would be relatively short compared to what would be required for a bridge.

I'm struggling to figure out where he imagines a tunnel to go, though. I'll refer to the image below.

The tunnel would go along the same path as the bridge, except much more of the path would be a regular ground-level path, so the actual tunnel would run only under the expressway and its embankment. I believe the proposed route for the bridge is in line with the north border of the LRT facility. The tunnel would take less space to reach ground level, so the ground level path would probably start somewhere between the expressway and the LRT driveway/parking lot rather than further west, and would extend along the yellow line border over to the mainline tracks.

Then access to Dutton could be done by just building a sidewalk on the LRT facility driveway. It’s inside the current perimeter but doesn’t need to be, at least not at present, since the building separates the space from the tracks.

I’m assuming the treed area is not intended for future expansion. I believe the intended future expansion is essentially more storage tracks in the empty space immediately adjacent to the existing storage tracks; any expansion past that would be done by building another facility down in Cambridge (probably not with full maintenance capability; primarily storage and daily servicing). If I’m wrong and the treed area is intended for future expansion then this specific layout doesn’t work; but using the portion of the treed area immediately adjacent to the expressway right-of-way for a path might be possible.

I’m skeptical too, but my suggestion would be to clarify the intended route before arguing that tunnelling under the LRT facility would make it infeasible.

[Chris]

We could rename the forum to Trains, cranes, tunnels and bridges.

Nothing gets us talking like these topics.

[neonjoe]

Ideally the LRT construction would not have tried to squeeze so much into the Northfield bridge and instead could have had its own structure to cross the highway making the current facility much more pedestrian friendly.
Maybe we are looking at this wrong, could the developer not pay for an infill station at Northfield and Conestoga. Its not ideal as the station stopping would be close but it would also open that entire area up for some more redevelopment.

[tomh009]

Another downside to a tunnel is that it may run into drainage issues. I believe a watercourse transitions this area and the highway is already in a relatively low part of the landscape; digging even further down could run into a whole host of other issues.

There could be drainage issues, I'm not a hygrologist, and I haven't looked at the area. That could add cost and complexity to be sure.

All I know is that a 1/4 km long bridge and causeway is very far from my preferred option, it squanders the opportunity to expand the greenspace, as well as limits the transportation connectivity options, and frankly, a 1/4 km long bridge is just not likely to be a particularly pleasant experience, summer or winter.

Is there a reason why we need 100m+ ramps at both ends? Could we not put in stairs and an elevator (and/or escalator)? It would take far less space, and the elevator likely costs much less than 100m of concrete ramp.

[Lebronj23]

https://www.waterloochronicle.ca/news-st...-waterloo/

Wow. Didn’t expect this in Waterloo at this location

[Bjays93]

Wow is right. Cant help but feel this is a little suburban for a development of this scale however. I suppose developers have given up on downtown waterloo?

[ac3r]

There's a partial discussion over in the suburban general thread. Probably worth moving this over there since I think it deserves its own thread at this point and this is a suburban development.

In total, 15 condo towers - 35, 24, 22, 22, 20, 19, 19, 15, 15, 9, 9, 9, 9, 7, 7 floors in height. In addition, there are 3 office towers - all 3 floors in height. As discussed in the general thread, they also have a plan for a pedestrian bridge over the expressway to connect directly to Northfield Station which ought to help with traffic. Planning is being done by GSP Group who are behind a lot of work in the region. ABA Architects are behind the design.

I wonder if this will be approved? I believe so...though I'm sure NIMBYs will still come out in force regardless. I'm sure things like traffic concerns will get brought up by them and indeed this might create more traffic, but having a direct connection to the LRT station should mitigate that a little bit. Since this is Waterloo, it could end up suffering the same fate as the Westmount Place where there are enough complaints that the developer scales things back a bit. But overall, it's hard to raise any serious objections to redeveloping an old industrial site. It's definitely suburban but it's not unusual to densify near rapid transit stations by using a transit oriented development strategy. It's a good place to build a project IMO.

[KevinL]

I can't see a lot of NIMBY concerns here because there is literally no residential anywhere near this site at the moment. If the developer thinks this parcel in the middle of industrial and commercial will sell units, I think they will be fine.

[ijmorlan]

Is there a reason why we need 100m+ ramps at both ends? Could we not put in stairs and an elevator (and/or escalator)? It would take far less space, and the elevator likely costs much less than 100m of concrete ramp.

You say “and/or”; but if there isn’t a ramp, an elevator would be needed. An escalator is very convenient for many but just doesn’t do the job for everybody, in particular for people in wheelchairs.

As to length, maximum slope for a ramp is typically 1/12. So to get over the expressway, you need about 5m clearance under the bridge, plus a bit for the floor thickness; let’s just say 5m. That requires a 60m ramp to get down to the level of the expressway. But it sits on an embankment; I don’t know how high but 2m by the time you get way off the expressway right-of-way wouldn’t surprise me; might be more since I don’t really know the topography. So that’s another 24m for a total of 84m. But actually I don’t think 1/12 takes into account the flat spaces you need every so often in a long ramp, so longer than that.

This is where the tunnel idea might help: let’s assume a spacious 3m height tunnel, and assume a 1m thickness between the ceiling and the roadway surface. I’m guessing 1m is thinner than you would want for the easiest style of construction (tunnel far enough down that the actual roadway can be built exactly the same as where there is no tunnel), but this gives us a tunnel floor 4m below the roadway. But if we assume the surrounding land is already 2m below the roadway, we might only have to ramp down 2m more, which would take about 24m (plus more for flat spaces).

But of course to figure out feasibility for real, not just my quick estimate, one would have to check the real topography and the real, detailed, design standards for ramps.

[tomh009]

Is there a reason why we need 100m+ ramps at both ends? Could we not put in stairs and an elevator (and/or escalator)? It would take far less space, and the elevator likely costs much less than 100m of concrete ramp.

You say “and/or”; but if there isn’t a ramp, an elevator would be needed. An escalator is very convenient for many but just doesn’t do the job for everybody, in particular for people in wheelchairs.

What I really meant was "elevator plus possibly an escalator".

I understand you like tunnels, but my question was about the option of using stairs+elevator (+possibly escalator) instead of a ramp, for a bridge.

[danbrotherston]

There could be drainage issues, I'm not a hygrologist, and I haven't looked at the area. That could add cost and complexity to be sure.

All I know is that a 1/4 km long bridge and causeway is very far from my preferred option, it squanders the opportunity to expand the greenspace, as well as limits the transportation connectivity options, and frankly, a 1/4 km long bridge is just not likely to be a particularly pleasant experience, summer or winter.

Is there a reason why we need 100m+ ramps at both ends? Could we not put in stairs and an elevator (and/or escalator)? It would take far less space, and the elevator likely costs much less than 100m of concrete ramp.

Stairs, yes, an elevator...gosh, you want to talk about expensive, now you have to maintain a climate controlled building.

I don't really know what the expense of an elevator would be, if it's comparable in cost, I certainly think it would be better than the 200m ramp. But fundamentally, the reason that such a massive structure is required is because of the height above the ground required by bridging the overheight traffic on the superelevated freeway. An elevator and stairs would still be a more significant obstacle to a more pedestrian scale (and less exposed to the elements) tunnel would be, to me, that is the ideal solution, provided we also spend the money to mitigate the social safety issues. But certainly an alternative like you propose would be better.

Of course, we can also imagine worse solutions, where they stack 200m of ramps in a zig-zag pattern to reduce costs of the ramp, while also extending all trips significantly.

Ultimately, the key to any solution is that the priority be on it being good for the users, rather than cheap for the developers. There are plenty of examples of bad overpasses AND underpasses that don't get used because they are inconvenient, poorly designed, unpleasant, and unsafe, all in the name of minimizing cost.

[danbrotherston]

Is there a reason why we need 100m+ ramps at both ends? Could we not put in stairs and an elevator (and/or escalator)? It would take far less space, and the elevator likely costs much less than 100m of concrete ramp.

You say “and/or”; but if there isn’t a ramp, an elevator would be needed. An escalator is very convenient for many but just doesn’t do the job for everybody, in particular for people in wheelchairs.

As to length, maximum slope for a ramp is typically 1/12. So to get over the expressway, you need about 5m clearance under the bridge, plus a bit for the floor thickness; let’s just say 5m. That requires a 60m ramp to get down to the level of the expressway. But it sits on an embankment; I don’t know how high but 2m by the time you get way off the expressway right-of-way wouldn’t surprise me; might be more since I don’t really know the topography. So that’s another 24m for a total of 84m. But actually I don’t think 1/12 takes into account the flat spaces you need every so often in a long ramp, so longer than that.

This is where the tunnel idea might help: let’s assume a spacious 3m height tunnel, and assume a 1m thickness between the ceiling and the roadway surface. I’m guessing 1m is thinner than you would want for the easiest style of construction (tunnel far enough down that the actual roadway can be built exactly the same as where there is no tunnel), but this gives us a tunnel floor 4m below the roadway. But if we assume the surrounding land is already 2m below the roadway, we might only have to ramp down 2m more, which would take about 24m (plus more for flat spaces).

But of course to figure out feasibility for real, not just my quick estimate, one would have to check the real topography and the real, detailed, design standards for ramps.

Yes...this was more or less my reasoning on the sizing and scale. Given the scale of the bridge shown, I suspect there might also be a slight downslope away from the highway towards the railway which further extends the ramp (given we're covering ~100m already, even a 1° downslope would significantly extend the ramp.

[Spokes]

Wow. Probably a decent location for it. Close to both the LRT and the expressway to get around. There will be opposition, but not the usual amount.

[danbrotherston]

I hope you guys are right.

But people came from far and wide to oppose the development on Mill St. We know that the majority of the objectors did not live on Mill.