4611 King St E | 30 & 25 fl | Proposed

[ZEBuilder]

This is a two tower development in the Sportsworld area of Kitchener being developed by LJM Developments of Burlington. 

The project itself is located at 4611 King St E which is the property between the 401 and the existing appliance store. It will contain 2 towers on a 6 floor podium, the tallest tower will be 30 floors and front King St, with the 25 floor tower being to the rear of the site next to the existing residental properties on Limerick Drive.

The project will include retail at grade fronting King St (650sqm/~7000sqft), it will also contain a large office space in the podium (1242sqm/~13360sqft). The building has 20659sqft of indoor amenity areas, the 7th floor of both towers is solely amenity areas with the remaining being in the podium of tower B. Their is also 7578sqft of outdoor amenity on the podium roof between towers A and B.

In terms of unit break down there is 500 1bdrm units, 73 1bdrm+den, 132 2bdrm and 21 3bdrm units proposed for a total of 726 units. There is a proposed 501 parking spaces (zoning requires 795) the vast majority is within 3 underground levels, the remaining is surface parking for the commercial space. There is also a proposed 404 bike spaces which will be included in the 3 underground parking levels.

ZBA/OPA docs: 4611 King St E Docs
Architectural Set: Arch set 4611 King St E
Urban Design Brief: 4611 King St E Urban Design Brief

Render from King St looking towards 401:
   

Render from King St at the 401:
   

Render of internal courtyard:
   

[panamaniac]

I have to wonder whether this one won't give rise to discussion about the amount of parking. It seems low.

[bravado]

Every time I think about this neighbourhood I remember the fascinating and miserable fact that there isn't a connecting sidewalk under the 401 to Cambridge, because who would ever walk somewhere? Our municipalities would rather eat glass than talk to each other...

Despite literally nobody living here, I wonder how much "neighbourhood character" talk will come out of the woodwork on this project.

[neonjoe]

Every time I think about this neighbourhood I remember the fascinating and miserable fact that there isn't a connecting sidewalk under the 401 to Cambridge, because who would ever walk somewhere? Our municipalities would rather eat glass than talk to each other...

Despite literally nobody living here, I wonder how much "neighbourhood character" talk will come out of the woodwork on this project.

Probably due to the MTO doing its thing…

[ZEBuilder]

I have to wonder whether this one won't give rise to discussion about the amount of parking. It seems low.

It's certainly lower than other projects nearby, the currently under construction project at 25 Sportsworld Crossing has over 800 spaces for less than 700 units, the project at the corner of Sportsworld and King (4396 King) has 580 spaces for 616 units, so this is certainly well under both of those. The kind of parking this has is similar to alot of downtown projects so the developers using that for whatever reason. Reading the Transport Impact Assessment (TIA) I'd expect the Region and the City to both have issues with it since the project will basically make the LOS even worse than it already is, the TIA does say that the future full build out of the 401/8 interchange will help traffic, which in itself is true, but with no timeline on that the LOS will quite literally be horrific if this gets built with not only the amount of parking but the shear density planned. The driveway itself will operate at a LOS of F which is the worst possible. Even the LOS projections along King are horrific with much of King at C-F which would result in significant delays in many locations.

The site itself isn't even in the Sportsworld PMTSA but that TIA is trying to leverage the fact that its close enough to it that the parking rate can be 0.68 per unit, while its true that most PMTSAs will have no parking minimums the city has yet to apply any Growing Together zoning to Block Line, Fairway and Sportsworld, which all have their own unique challenges, Sportsworld is always going to be extremely car dependent being fenced in by the 401/8, the industrial along Maple Grove and then the Grand River so there is really a lack of connections that truthfully makes it possible to be independent of a car, while it is theoretically possible it certainly wouldn't make life easy, so while I understand the TIAs justification it's certainly got some flawed assumptions and it wouldn't be surprising if the Region and City tear it apart, but if this goes to the OLT it'll likely get approved so the city ultimately has to keep that it mind.

Certainly from a traffic engineering perspective with the LOS already as bad as it is it doesn't make a lot of sense to put this much density here with limited alternative options out of the area, so while I'd love the additional units to help ease the housing crisis this certainly doesn't make a lot of sense just from a connectivity standpoint.

[bravado]

What’s the concern about not being parking here? Do people think that tenants will park on King St illegally?

[dtkvictim]

What’s the concern about not being parking here? Do people think that tenants will park on King St illegally?

A family member whose office in is a strip mall type plaza complained to me once that a nearby condo proposal didn't have enough parking, so the students living there with their beater cars would park in the plaza and not care about dinging her car with their doors. A little bit further, but plenty of parking lots nearby to here. I'm not sure how common this line of thought is though.

[panamaniac]

What’s the concern about not being parking here? Do people think that tenants will park on King St illegally?

In an indirect way, that was part of the reason for my question.  I'm not seeing may people living there without a car or cars so I wonder where they are all going to be stored.  Not on King, obviously.

[bravado]

I guess my point is that if they build this, and there aren’t the typical residential side streets + church parking lots nearby to illegally store cars in, what’s the problem? If a developer is willing to spend millions on a gamble that they can find buyers who don’t want to drive, who are we to say their business plan is dumb?

[westwardloo]

Haha it's kind of funny that one of the nicest proposed towers in our region is in arguable the worst location from an urban perspective.

My guess is that this tower never sees the light of day, but I would love to see this style of building constructed in the university, uptown or downtown area.

[tomh009]

Haha it's kind of funny that one of the nicest proposed towers in our region is in arguable the worst location from an urban perspective. 

It's actually fairly similar to the latest Inclusive renders: the biggest difference is the angle of the second tower, which is really driven by the size/shape of the lot.

[KevinL]

Every time I think about this neighbourhood I remember the fascinating and miserable fact that there isn't a connecting sidewalk under the 401 to Cambridge, because who would ever walk somewhere? 

Hopefully that gets resolved when the Ion extension is built.

This does seem like a very odd place for this level of density; it's a long and unappealing walk from Sportsworld Ion, and the neighbourhood amenities are few (since Dutchie's closed the nearest thing to a grocer is Costco). I can see being beside the highway as a selling point, but for that many units? Hmm.

[ijmorlan]

This does seem like a very odd place for this level of density; it's a long and unappealing walk from Sportsworld Ion, and the neighbourhood amenities are few (since Dutchie's closed the nearest thing to a grocer is Costco). I can see being beside the highway as a selling point, but for that many units? Hmm.

Who needs a grocery store when there are Costco hotdogs?

[tomh009]

This does seem like a very odd place for this level of density; it's a long and unappealing walk from Sportsworld Ion, and the neighbourhood amenities are few (since Dutchie's closed the nearest thing to a grocer is Costco). I can see being beside the highway as a selling point, but for that many units? Hmm.

Who needs a grocery store when there are Costco hotdogs? 

That might help curb the population growth but there are also the healthcare costs to consider!

[Bella123]

All of Limerick is on well water. That level of construction will seriously impact everyone’s wells I would think. The 401 construction has already necessitated redrills. Hope the developer intends to run water all along limerick and pay for hook up!