General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours

[Square]

The owners of this land must be reading this thread. They now have a billboard over the For Sale sign showing that concept photo and saying Approved Residential Development.

[ac3r]

Hahah, well hey devs!

Mind designing something that looks nice? Or shoot me a DM, I'll do it free of charge. I can keep the exact same number of units, just let me fix that massing and façade. We could turn this into one of the best projects in Southern Ontario!

[ZEBuilder]

63 Courtland East is boarded up. I wonder if they're selling this. It's a big property and could host a large development. A number of houses next to it have also been demolished.

This now has a bit more public information available, as expected it was bought up by a developer, this was bought by Cantiro. They are the same developer behind the rental that is under construction across from GRH (900 King W). Cantiro also owns the adjacent properties to this at 45-53 Courtland which has been approved for a 6 floor building. It would not be surprising in the slightest if they held off on that to make a more cohesive development seeing that they now have 2.2 acres of land to play with.

Cantiro is also likely looking to or has purchased the property at 26 Martin St which is an enclave of 63 Courtland, it's possible to make something work without owning it but it's really better if it were included in the development block.

Cantiro hasn't made public any plans for the land yet, it will definitely need a ZBA if Growing Together is still at the OLT when they apply for site plan. If Growing Together is passed it will be zoned SGA 2 meaning a max height of 8 floors.

They're currently planning on keeping the Courtland frontage but that may change once a site plan is fully developed.

Here's the current demolition plan:
   

[tomh009]

This now has a bit more public information available, as expected it was bought up by a developer, this was bought by Cantiro. They are the same developer behind the rental that is under construction across from GRH (900 King W). Cantiro also owns the adjacent properties to this at 45-53 Courtland which has been approved for a 6 floor building. It would not be surprising in the slightest if they held off on that to make a more cohesive development seeing that they now have 2.2 acres of land to play with.
(...)
They're currently planning on keeping the Courtland frontage but that may change once a site plan is fully developed.

Earlier this month it looked like they were using 63 Courtland for construction access to 45-53, which is otherwise quite challenging due to the elevations. But it looked like the work was ongoing at 63 in spite of them having acquired 63.

Also, 63 is on the non-designated heritage register so I expect that they would need to retain at least the facade in order to get zoning changes. And it's the building where Schneiders first started so it has some significance to the community.

[Square]

The Towne Bowl land has Sold now on the sign.

[ZEBuilder]

Well the Strange/Park/Glasgow area is going to get significantly more development than just the Park St property that was discussed recently. The Airboss property was listed today (the listing is not public yet), it is being marketed to development and investment groups. The only public piece of information is one news article. 

Here's that: https://storeys.com/101-glasgow-street-k...-for-sale/

The article has a conceptual rendering (it is nothing more than marketing material), the tallest tower is approx 50 floors, however the property has SGA-4 zoning so they can build taller if they wanted to:
   

[nms]

It's going to take some creative urban planning to make this work as anything as dense as is being proposed. The confluence of Glasgow, Park and Strange Street don't render themselves for any easy kind of movement upgrades. The sidewalk along Glasgow is barely there so it couldn't likely support any kind of MUT heading east-west. Strange St is already mostly a one-way street fronting the property. When coupled with the alluded to development in the parking lot across Strange St, plus the development at the Victoria & Park corner the general north-south flow of people and vehicles could be pretty heavy.

[westwardloo]

It's going to take some creative urban planning to make this work as anything as dense as is being proposed. The confluence of Glasgow, Park and Strange Street don't render themselves for any easy kind of movement upgrades.  The sidewalk along Glasgow is barely there so it couldn't likely support any kind of MUT heading east-west.  Strange St is already mostly a one-way street fronting the property.  When coupled with the alluded to development in the parking lot across Strange St, plus the development at the Victoria & Park corner the general north-south flow of people and vehicles could be pretty heavy.

I think running Wellington to Dominion through the OSC property could alleviate a lot of those concerns. You would have Park and Strange St. to access Victoria/ DTK, Dominion/ Wellington St. to access King/ HWY 7, Glasgow st. to access belmont/ boardwalk, and Park st. to access Uptown. 

People with traffic concerns always assume everyone is going to driving their cars all at the exact same time. 

I love what they did with Catalyst Commons, but it really would have been nice for it to have been incorporated into the redevelopment of the Airboss property. Could have been a true Mixed used development similar to what we see in toronto like liberty village. 

Concepts look great, too bad it is Waterloo region so Alburn or Drewlo will buy the site and develop bland beige and outright ugly buildings on the site that will take 2 decades to complete. I hope Vanmar or Zehr buy the property or fingers crossed for a toronto developer to finally look at Kitchener as a good investment west of mississauga. One can dream....

[panamaniac]

One wonders what is happening with AirBoss?

[westwardloo]

One wonders what is happening with AirBoss?

One hopes they can use the sale of this property to secure financing to build a more modern facility in one of the many industrial parks we have in the Region, maybe even expand?

[ZEBuilder]

Concepts look great, too bad it is Waterloo region so Alburn or Drewlo will buy the site and develop bland beige and outright ugly buildings on the site that will take 2 decades to complete. I hope Vanmar or Zehr buy the property or fingers crossed for a toronto developer to finally look at Kitchener as a good investment west of mississauga. One can dream....

Toronto and Vancouver investors have been looking at KW, some already own land in KW and are working on development plans. These things just take years to come to fruition.

[mastermind]

Haha westwardloo and panamaniac you two saying "One can dream" and "One wonders..." and "One hopes..."  I'm picturing you like friends on a back porch at sunset on rocking chairs smoking cigars stroking your chins musing about the world

[westwardloo]

Haha westwardloo and panamaniac you two saying "One can dream" and "One wonders..." and "One hopes..."  I'm picturing you like friends on a back porch at sunset on rocking chairs smoking cigars stroking your chins musing about the world

Hahaha we are clearly pessimistic optimists

[MidTowner]

It's going to take some creative urban planning to make this work as anything as dense as is being proposed. The confluence of Glasgow, Park and Strange Street don't render themselves for any easy kind of movement upgrades.  The sidewalk along Glasgow is barely there so it couldn't likely support any kind of MUT heading east-west.  Strange St is already mostly a one-way street fronting the property.  When coupled with the alluded to development in the parking lot across Strange St, plus the development at the Victoria & Park corner the general north-south flow of people and vehicles could be pretty heavy.

I think running Wellington to Dominion through the OSC property could alleviate a lot of those concerns. You would have Park and Strange St. to access Victoria/ DTK, Dominion/ Wellington St. to access King/ HWY 7, Glasgow st. to access belmont/ boardwalk, and Park st. to access Uptown. 

People with traffic concerns always assume everyone is going to driving their cars all at the exact same time. 

I love what they did with Catalyst Commons, but it really would have been nice for it to have been incorporated into the redevelopment of the Airboss property. Could have been a true Mixed used development similar to what we see in toronto like liberty village. 

Concepts look great, too bad it is Waterloo region so Alburn or Drewlo will buy the site and develop bland beige and outright ugly buildings on the site that will take 2 decades to complete. I hope Vanmar or Zehr buy the property or fingers crossed for a toronto developer to finally look at Kitchener as a good investment west of mississauga. One can dream....

Hopefully there is not an excessive amount of parking and people locate here who want to walk or use transit instead of driving everywhere. There are pretty good transit options- reasonable walk to Central or Grand River Hospital Stations, 20 on Victoria which could maybe have an express route one day.

I do think linking Dominion to Wellington through the OSC property would make a lot of sense.

[Momo26]

This looks fantastic.

Dare I say with The downturn in condo interest that we could risk having an overcompliment of condos in KIT?

Would it have been better served with a cluster of townhouses mixed with mid rise larger apartments?