The Glove Box | 6 fl | U/C

[Bjays93]

What a poor decision for the glass. There was so much potential

[nms]

I guess we can wait 34 years for the glass to be upgraded as it was for the Sun Life (née Mutual Life) tower. I believe it opened 1987 or 88 and the current owner has spent the last year or so upgrading the glass.

[CP42]

One KPMG sign is now up on the king-facing corner of the building.

[CP42]

Walked by today and it appears they’re doing some sort of heated walkway beside the building.

[panamaniac]

I was unsure about the black cladding on the office, but I wandered by the other day and it was working for me.

[ijmorlan]

Walked by today and it appears they’re doing some sort of heated walkway beside the building.

Snowmelt system? That’s the only thing I can think of. Those things are underused. In particular, the LRT platforms absolutely should have used them. The amount of salt they’re using instead, not to mention the labour, could probably pay for the snowmelt system.

[tomh009]

I was unsure about the black cladding on the office, but I wandered by the other day and it was working for me.

It can look fine or terrible, really depends on the lighting. The ratio of black spandrel to actual windows is rather high so when the sun is in the "wrong" position and you really see the difference, it looks far less attractive.

[tomh009]

(Moved Garment St condo posts to the appropriate thread.)

[Momo26]

I think the building looks sharp from the outside so far! They need to bring in some solid ground floor shops/restos now.

[ac3r]

I wonder what kind of shops will move in there. Seems like half the time it's just restaurants (which is fine) but little else moves in downtown Kitchener. Very few or outright no clothing stores, shoe shoes, art stores, entertainment places, unique shops, computer stores, gift stores, hobby stores etc. You can take 3-4 blocks of any generic neighbourhood in the Toronto core and find more interesting stuff there than all of our downtown. Here it's usually just restaurants, banks, realtors, weed shops and other generic stuff. There's still very little to bring people from the suburbs downtown unless they're eating out or going to a one off event at like...a bar or to watch a band.

[nms]

I know that Uptown Waterloo went through a rapid change over the last ten years. Someone once told me that they used to be able to do all of their Christmas shopping along King St between William St and Bridgeport Road. Now, the majority of the commercial space is filled by restaurants, bars or services (eg banks). I can think of maybe five that are not restaurants or bars: Ontario Seed Home Hardware (they own their building); Words Worth Books; the Running Room; Orange Monkey Records; and Channer's Clothing.

I'm not sure if the high commercial rents every really allow a business to begin a slow build towards enough sales to allow them to continue long-term. While restaurants and bars have very low margins, they rely on heavy customer turnover each night. Have any of the new towers in Kitchener managed to attract and keep any commercial tenants that weren't a restaurant or bar?

[cherrypark]

I know that Uptown Waterloo went through a rapid change over the last ten years.  Someone once told me that they used to be able to do all of their Christmas shopping along King St between William St and Bridgeport Road.  Now, the majority of the commercial space is filled by restaurants, bars or services (eg banks).  I can think of maybe five that are not restaurants or bars: Ontario Seed Home Hardware (they own their building); Words Worth Books; the Running Room; Orange Monkey Records; and Channer's Clothing.

I'm not sure if the high commercial rents every really allow a business to begin a slow build towards enough sales to allow them to continue long-term.  While restaurants and bars have very low margins, they rely on heavy customer turnover each night.  Have any of the new towers in Kitchener managed to attract and keep any commercial tenants that weren't a restaurant or bar?

Only one that immediately comes to mind is Mark Nunes in the bottom of the Bauer Lofts? Though to be fair, a lot of the comparable towers that have ground floor retail are a lot newer and I have no idea if they were there from the start.

[ac3r]

Have any of the new towers in Kitchener managed to attract and keep any commercial tenants that weren't a restaurant or bar?

Well, Kaleidoscope Realtors or whatever they are called are moving into Charlie West. That's something, yeah?

Joking aside you're completely right. With real estate so messed up these days, it's not surprising few people can afford to open up spaces in urban cores. But that just goes to show you how broken the neoliberal capitalist system that we keep perpetuating is. I'm not a proponent of that system but sometimes it feels like accelerationism (and obviously, I'm using a more pro-Marxist definition of this, rather than a far-right one) is the only viable answer for change, because none of the patch work or trickle down solutions people advocate for has done anything to improve anything because it still relies on the very system that is causing problems. It's like we've got a really...shoddy, unstable wooden deck we've kept trying to repair with no conclusion, so the only real answer is to blow it all up and start with fresh ideas.

[jamincan]

I know that Uptown Waterloo went through a rapid change over the last ten years.  Someone once told me that they used to be able to do all of their Christmas shopping along King St between William St and Bridgeport Road.  Now, the majority of the commercial space is filled by restaurants, bars or services (eg banks).  I can think of maybe five that are not restaurants or bars: Ontario Seed Home Hardware (they own their building); Words Worth Books; the Running Room; Orange Monkey Records; and Channer's Clothing.

I'm not sure if the high commercial rents every really allow a business to begin a slow build towards enough sales to allow them to continue long-term.  While restaurants and bars have very low margins, they rely on heavy customer turnover each night.  Have any of the new towers in Kitchener managed to attract and keep any commercial tenants that weren't a restaurant or bar?

McPhail's and King Street Cycle are both in Uptown. Long & McQuade. A fair number of clothing/jewellery stores. Carry-On Comics.

[jwilliamson]

I know that Uptown Waterloo went through a rapid change over the last ten years.  Someone once told me that they used to be able to do all of their Christmas shopping along King St between William St and Bridgeport Road.  Now, the majority of the commercial space is filled by restaurants, bars or services (eg banks).  I can think of maybe five that are not restaurants or bars: Ontario Seed Home Hardware (they own their building); Words Worth Books; the Running Room; Orange Monkey Records; and Channer's Clothing.

I'm not sure if the high commercial rents every really allow a business to begin a slow build towards enough sales to allow them to continue long-term.  While restaurants and bars have very low margins, they rely on heavy customer turnover each night.  Have any of the new towers in Kitchener managed to attract and keep any commercial tenants that weren't a restaurant or bar?

McPhail's and King Street Cycle are both in Uptown. Long & McQuade. A fair number of clothing/jewellery stores. Carry-On Comics.

Jeff Alpaugh, Carters, Loop, N4E1, Paint by Munzy, East Winds, Harmony, Fashion Seaons, Arthur Murray Dance, Zero Waste Bulk