Charlie West (Charles & Gaukel) | 31 fl | Complete

[Rainrider22]

The render looks stunning, density would be excellent at this location. I wonder if they are targeting the project to be mixed use.

One can only imagine what Downtown and the surrounding area will look like in 10 to 20 years.

I agree,  I am willing to say that all the "nay sayers"  and lots of them, will finally be silenced that DTK is actually a place to be....

[Spokes]

Wow. Just Wow.

I envisioned something like this for the redeveloped GRT terminal down the road. Something iconic that would really draw people to the core and be near Victoria park.

There is really so much to like about this proposal

[KevinL]

The Record confirms that the project will be retail on the first floor.

http://m.therecord.com/news-story/721592...-kitchener

And they'll give Kava Bean first lick at moving back, which is classy.

[DHLawrence]

Condo comb-over?

[tomh009]

Single image for easier viewing.  My apologies for the sky rendering!

   

[Viewfromthe42]

Yes, this would be great. Momentum did something interesting with parking at 1 Victoria: condo buyers don't own their spots, but instead have a perpetual lease, so it should be easier to reuse parking spaces (shared between condo owners and day users), and adapt to increasing or decreasing demand for spaces over time.
They also plan to have car share spots.

Other tidbits: it sounds like the building will have some amenities to cater to groups not well served by condos here today: dog owners and families. Plans call for some sort of astroturf doggy relief area on the top of the podium, and a dog wash / dog spa. There's talk of a playroom off the gym with a glass wall so parents can watch their kids while working out. Also apparently 15% accessible units of various sizes / locations in the building. Tri-sorting for garbage.

the42 was built with a carshare spot, but it was removed within a year or two, so I'm not as keen on carshare agreements being valid for reducing the overall parking requirements of a building anymore, unless there's an agreement in place that ties the cost of the spot into the maintenance fees long-term. Which is disappointing.

The astroturf relief area sounds interesting, but living at Kaufman it's become incredibly disappointing how many owners do not bag their doggie poop. Walk along the Victoria strip from King to the parking lot entrance, and on both sides of the sidewalk you will find a pile of poo in stages from fresh, to stepped on, to rained-into-pancake-shape every few feet. Astroturf also makes it sound like the condo board could easily remove it, which would be disappointing, and if it winds up like most condos around here, it will still be rentals saying "no pets."

The42 also had tri-sorters installed, but the board promptly disabled the organics option as soon as they were in charge.

All this is to say that while I like what Momentum puts into their plans, what happens once they turn over the keys has been incredibly disappointing so far, and council and city staff should take this evidence into account when trying to assign bonuses for design elements. Giving Momentum extra floors because they install an organics button on their garbage chutes, which promptly gets disabled by the condo board, is incredibly inappropriate.

Depending on how parking is accessed off of Hall's lane, they may need some interesting one-way or other traffic management to deal with the flow of cars from 200 parking spaces. I'm also curious at how the unit development is balanced, is it 250 one bedrooms? It would be odd to cater to pet owners, and then find that the unit mix is so biased to small square footage that none of this is likely to attract dog owners. I'd also appreciate them talking to actual condo dog owners. One of the best aspects of Kaufman for me as a pet owner has been their basement. All the storage lockers are down there, and it's a concrete floor, durable wall, long hallway area that's been excellent for me to toss a ball to my dog in, letting him run the full hallway length. There's also a slightly more open area down there (e.g. width greater than normal hallway) where my dog has been able to meet up with other dogs to play wrestle, which in 20 minutes tires him out more than hours of walking.

[Markster]

I don't see diverse use applied to the Manulife parking garage... basically ever. So long as they need their gigantic surface lot to the north, it's fair to say that the garage is 100% used. It's going to be a long time before that changes.

Oh, one other comment on the renders: I appreciate that there's no "condo comb-over" on here!

What is that?

[clasher]

The city/region should just mandate all new builds have to sort organics and recycle.

[ijmorlan]

The city/region should just mandate all new builds have to sort organics and recycle.

Absolutely. How is this not part of the building code?

Actually we should go a bit further: decide on the refuse categories (probably garbage, recycling, compost). Then make all public trash receptacles match, and use the building code to require all apartment buildings and commercial establishments which provide trash receptacles to do the same. Identify each category with a colour and a symbol, and apply the colour and symbol to the appropriate parts of all receptacles. Also, provide all streams at all locations — don’t have a garbage can here, a recycling bin there, and a compost bin in yet another location. Also use the same symbols to explain Regional garbage pickup, and make sure the categories there match precisely.

This would reduce the mental load involved in proper trash disposal. One would quickly learn which category each item is, and no matter where one needed to get rid of it, it would go in the same-labelled category.

[Viewfromthe42]

Don't forget the big issue: buildings pay for their own garbage. If someone brings their organics to the chute alongside their recycling and their garbage, on the 25th floor, and they select organics and toss it in, then select recycling and toss it in *before the sorter in the basement has time to change positions* you've now contaminated an entire organics pickup, and get charged by your organics handler (who you're paying for). Then you see them select garbage and toss it in *before the sorter which had moved to recycling has a chance to change to garbage* and you've now contaminated the recycling. But there is not a camera watching you in the garbage room, so you never know who's screwing up the entire building of 250 units. So the board just votes to stop using the multi-sort.

A jerk-proof system is hard to design. You'd need something like a sorter that is always locked, and only unlocks when someone selects garbage/recycling/organics, and locks between type changes so you can't contaminate. Even that might not be enough, and I've never seen a system with locks, but I can promise you this is a problem common to any chute that isn't single type. Kaufman, we have to take our recycling down to the first floor and sort it, and there's no organics at all.

[panamaniac]

Yes, this would be great. Momentum did something interesting with parking at 1 Victoria: condo buyers don't own their spots, but instead have a perpetual lease, so it should be easier to reuse parking spaces (shared between condo owners and day users), and adapt to increasing or decreasing demand for spaces over time.
They also plan to have car share spots.

Other tidbits: it sounds like the building will have some amenities to cater to groups not well served by condos here today: dog owners and families. Plans call for some sort of astroturf doggy relief area on the top of the podium, and a dog wash / dog spa. There's talk of a playroom off the gym with a glass wall so parents can watch their kids while working out. Also apparently 15% accessible units of various sizes / locations in the building. Tri-sorting for garbage.

the42 was built with a carshare spot, but it was removed within a year or two, so I'm not as keen on carshare agreements being valid for reducing the overall parking requirements of a building anymore, unless there's an agreement in place that ties the cost of the spot into the maintenance fees long-term. Which is disappointing.

The astroturf relief area sounds interesting, but living at Kaufman it's become incredibly disappointing how many owners do not bag their doggie poop. Walk along the Victoria strip from King to the parking lot entrance, and on both sides of the sidewalk you will find a pile of poo in stages from fresh, to stepped on, to rained-into-pancake-shape every few feet. Astroturf also makes it sound like the condo board could easily remove it, which would be disappointing, and if it winds up like most condos around here, it will still be rentals saying "no pets."

The42 also had tri-sorters installed, but the board promptly disabled the organics option as soon as they were in charge.

All this is to say that while I like what Momentum puts into their plans, what happens once they turn over the keys has been incredibly disappointing so far, and council and city staff should take this evidence into account when trying to assign bonuses for design elements. Giving Momentum extra floors because they install an organics button on their garbage chutes, which promptly gets disabled by the condo board, is incredibly inappropriate.

Depending on how parking is accessed off of Hall's lane, they may need some interesting one-way or other traffic management to deal with the flow of cars from 200 parking spaces. I'm also curious at how the unit development is balanced, is it 250 one bedrooms? It would be odd to cater to pet owners, and then find that the unit mix is so biased to small square footage that none of this is likely to attract dog owners. I'd also appreciate them talking to actual condo dog owners. One of the best aspects of Kaufman for me as a pet owner has been their basement. All the storage lockers are down there, and it's a concrete floor, durable wall, long hallway area that's been excellent for me to toss a ball to my dog in, letting him run the full hallway length. There's also a slightly more open area down there (e.g. width greater than normal hallway) where my dog has been able to meet up with other dogs to play wrestle, which in 20 minutes tires him out more than hours of walking.

I'm a bit of a hard-liner wrt condos and dogs.  To me, a good condo would prohibit pets above a certain size (e.g. 40 pounds), although I don't know whether that is allowed in Ontario.  Entry and exit with pets would be restricted to the parking garage entrance and pets would be prohibited from all common areas, including hallways (i.e.  you'd need to carry your pet in/out, or put it in a wagon or something).  None of that would make owners/tenants more likely to stoop and scoop, but it would make for a cleaner building.  The idea of a dog bathing area in the basement strikes me as a good idea.  

Sorry to wander off-topic.

Sorry to go off-topic.

[tomh009]

The city/region should just mandate all new builds have to sort organics and recycle.

Mandate?  How about even just enabling it first!  We would like to do organics but we can't get into the pilot program, and there is no indication when there will be more widespread availability.

[tomh009]

Walk along the Victoria strip from King to the parking lot entrance, and on both sides of the sidewalk you will find a pile of poo in stages from fresh, to stepped on, to rained-into-pancake-shape every few feet. Astroturf also makes it sound like the condo board could easily remove it, which would be disappointing, and if it winds up like most condos around here, it will still be rentals saying "no pets."

The42 also had tri-sorters installed, but the board promptly disabled the organics option as soon as they were in charge.

All this is to say that while I like what Momentum puts into their plans, what happens once they turn over the keys has been incredibly disappointing so far, and council and city staff should take this evidence into account when trying to assign bonuses for design elements. Giving Momentum extra floors because they install an organics button on their garbage chutes, which promptly gets disabled by the condo board, is incredibly inappropriate.

A lot of good things can be undone by bad boards.  But if those things aren't put in, even a good board can't do much.  But if most owners aren't happy with what the board is doing, you absolutely need to vote in a new board.  We did that last year ...

We don't allow dogs walking through the main entrance (either garage or side entrance is OK).  There is generally not much dog feces around the building, and it's been months since there was an incident inside.  Most people recycle, carrying the metal, plastics, paper etc to the blue and grey bins downstairs.  It's not all condo board, it's the owners (and tenants), too -- and they are the ones who choose the board.

[Elmira Guy]

To join others in a question... what the hell is a condo combover?

[Viewfromthe42]

I'm a bit of a hard-liner wrt condos and dogs.  To me, a good condo would prohibit pets above a certain size (e.g. 40 pounds), although I don't know whether that is allowed in Ontario.  Entry and exit with pets would be restricted to the parking garage entrance and pets would be prohibited from all common areas, including hallways (i.e.  you'd need to carry your pet in/out, or put it in a wagon or something).  None of that would make owners/tenants more likely to stoop and scoop, but it would make for a cleaner building.  The idea of a dog bathing area in the basement strikes me as a good idea.  

Sorry to wander off-topic.

Sorry to go off-topic.

To me, that's incredibly discriminatory and unnecessary. There are indeed bylaws for problem pet owners, laws if it gets that bad, but it's truly a struggle to find places to be with my 65 lbs dog. My condo has no restrictions on pets that I'm aware of, even having a poop bin (doggie bag dispenser no longer stocked) by the front door. I don't think that I should be punished for someone else being a bad dog owner. If I can control my dog, his weight shouldn't matter. Meet someone in a hallway? My 6ft leash gets rolled around my hand and my body is pressed against his, between him and anyone else (not that his friendly demeanor should be feared).

Attempting to require dogs be carried in/out or put in a wagon would further discriminate against people who aren't strong. Think of all the older folks who may have a 14 lbs schnauzer as my former neighbour relied upon when her husband died, but lo they can't open doors or handle stairs while carrying even that light a dog. Today, banning pets is (and I believe should) be seen as outrageous as trying to ban children from a building.