Duke Tower Kitchener | 39 fl | completed

[tomh009]

The interior also shows, more to homeowners only but walk through Charlie west vs any condo in toronto and its a huge difference. Finishing, design, amenity spaces etc.

Haven't seen Charlie West inside yet. But Barrelyards common areas are significantly nicer than those at 1 Victoria. 144 Park is somewhere in between. Exterior design and interior finish don't always correlate.

[dtkvictim]

I agree. Out of curiosity, what's the shelf life of a building façade for a building built in the last 50 years? The Mutual Life/Clarica/Sunlife tower (1987?) had its exterior updated in the last few years and it is barely 30 years old. First Canadian Place (1975) was reclad between 2009-2012.

When a building is entirely owned by one landlord, is it more likely to have an ambitious outside renovation? (or for that matter a complete top to bottom, inside and out renovation; or ultimately demolition and rebuild?) I can't imagine how any condominium tower can ever have a major type of, back to the beams, renovation that some post-Second World War buildings need from time-to-time.

That's going to depend a lot on what the condominium board and their members want. I have seen condos facade redone (though it only need painting). Example is those two smaller towers on Highland across from Shoppers drug mart - one is landlord, one is a condo. The condo got its paint first, eventually when the rental unit got paint, they painted it black.

Also applied to townhomes, many upgrades will be done if all the owners agree to surcharges on their condo fees.

As for the work involved, I suppose if it is more complicated, like the newer condos will be, I'd imagine a team would come in and work one or two units at a time, to minimize time spent so people still have privacy when night falls.

This is reminding me of a talk I came across a while ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0vDEyLh1yM

Particularly pertaining to glass curtain walls, and the need to replace the entire thing at once, as your windows are now also your enclosure. It also has me wondering about the true environment costs of these types of highrises. It will be interesting to see if these predictions come true.

[Lebronj23]

I asked this question on a YouTube video of DTK 5 months ago and just got a reply from what I assume is the builder.  So now I guess it’s 130.7 m tall

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[Lebronj23]

To me this is starting to resemble 357 King West in Toronto. Also does anyone know if they are going to be painting the exposed concrete on DTK? 

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[Lens]

Other then the balconies it's not exposed. It's a textured grey precast, unfortunately.

[westwardloo]

God it is horrendous. It get worse ever time I look at it. The developer should be ashamed they built this "landmark" building that will be a stain on kitcheners skyline for decades to come. I blame the architect as well, but as I am well aware they were probably told what they need to design by the developer. 

Drove by the other day and noticed they added brick to the first floor under the parking garage. Absolutely no thought into material selection.

357 king is no award winner, but it is 10x better then dtk building. Podium for one is not something that burns the eyes everyone you look at it. It also is uniformed. It doesn’t change shape randomly at the last 8 floors. The glass is also much nicer. 

This is the last time I will comment on this thread as I have nothing nice to say and it actually makes me mad everytime I see this monstrosity. This building only provides nimbies ammo to uppose building in the future.

[Lebronj23]

From 10 Duke parking lot. (Actually a decent sized site, if something big goes here we will have large twin towers!)

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[CP42]

It seems odd that there is no occupancy yet, even on the lower floors. Didn’t Charlie West top out at roughly the same time, yet it is almost fully occupied?

[ZEBuilder]

It seems odd that there is no occupancy yet, even on the lower floors. Didn’t Charlie West top out at roughly the same time, yet it is almost fully occupied?

Charlie West topped out in the middle of January with the first occupancy occuring in August so a 7 month difference, Duke tower topped off in late June. If it's following the same 7 month schedule as Charlie West it should get occupancy later this month.

From there most recent YouTube video which was posted 2 weeks ago they said that the 15th floor has kitchen installs occuring so that furthers the idea that occupancy isn't far off.

[CP42]

It seems odd that there is no occupancy yet, even on the lower floors. Didn’t Charlie West top out at roughly the same time, yet it is almost fully occupied?

Charlie West topped out in the middle of January with the first occupancy occuring in August so a 7 month difference, Duke tower topped off in late June. If it's following the same 7 month schedule as Charlie West it should get occupancy later this month.

From there most recent YouTube video which was posted 2 weeks ago they said that the 15th floor has kitchen installs occuring so that furthers the idea that occupancy isn't far off.

Makes sense. The first tower of Station Park topped out in December and they have given an estimated occupancy of July - following a 7 month timeline as well.

[Lebronj23]

Taken from Fredrick st

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[ac3r]

Your shaky hands managed to slightly obscure the godawful podium.

[Lebronj23]

Your shaky hands managed to slightly obscure the godawful podium.

Haha I tried! Next time I’ll have to bust out the photo shop

[CP42]

Just tuned into the council meeting discussing Tek Tower (30 Francis) and an architect pointed out that the renderings should not be taken as final product, pointing to the podium rendering for DTK Condos versus the final product.

[ac3r]

Your shaky hands managed to slightly obscure the godawful podium.

Haha I tried! Next time I’ll have to bust out the photo shop

How'd I do? Edit...no idea how I ended up with two layers lmao. I had no patience to do any better, though.

I'm tempted to e-mail this to SRM and tell them I improved their podium, but maybe that's a bit too mean. :^)