15 Dellroy Ave | 18 fl | Proposed

[ac3r]

A developer is proposing an 18 floor mixed used building at 15 Dellroy Avenue. Presumably this will be within the big pit along Weber Street East which has been there for decades. I think there was another tower planned here hence the excavation but then it was never built, leaving only the hollow pit?

Proposed are 231 residential units and 325 square meters of commercial space on the ground floor. 168 underground parking spots are planned.

No renderings available yet but I will update the thread when available.

[ac3r]

So this will be yet another addition to this old suburban section of Kitchener. Between the future Sportsworld Station and Borden Station there are a very large number of projects going up: Lower Kitchener, 1253 King East, The Junction, King 926, 368 Ottawa South, 459 Mill, 1157 & 1175 Weber East Elevate Condos, 20 Ottawa North, 1668 King East, Hush Collection, King & Cameo, 20 Sportsworld Crossing, 25 Sportsworld Crossing, 4396 King East, the 4 condo towers at Fairview Park Mall and all the new offices + stores going in as part of the mall expansion. I think I've forgotten a couple as well.

While the Cambridge LRT line will do wonders for transportation once complete, I do hope the region and city are able to find a way to improve alternative modes of transportation. For biking, this is easily one of the worst areas in the region. The two main arterial roads - King and Weber - are the definition of traffic sewers. I don't believe either have any proper bike lanes and unfortunately due to the age of the neighbourhoods, they don't have much room to add them. Sacrificing lanes to add bike lanes would be a tricky thing to do as they see very high volumes of traffic for many reasons (they're arterial roads, east-west roads intersect at many points, the highway sees a lot of exiting/entering, popular businesses etc).

If we are going to be adding so much density in this end of the region, we're going to need to find a way to offer people more methods to get around other than personal vehicles. While I don't want to immediately derail this thread by turning it into a discussion about infrastructure, I'm nonetheless curious what sort of options the region and city could do to improve things around here. As already mentioned: the two main roads going north-south would be tricky to add bike lanes to. But also due to the age of these surrounding neighbourhoods, cutting new trails would also be a challenge since there are already existing homes, wetlands, forests as well as the Conestoga Parkway being a physical barrier.

So for those posters who are more familiar with infrastructure, where do you think they could add in new bike lanes or multi-use trails in order to improve transportation - particularly for those wanting to travel north-south?

[SF22]

So for those posters who are more familiar with infrastructure, where do you think they could add in new bike lanes or multi-use trails in order to improve transportation - particularly for those wanting to travel north-south?

It's perhaps a little out of the way, but River Road is prime for separated bike lanes for its entire length; I did email the city a year ago about River Road, and they heavily implied that when that street comes up for reconstruction next, it will be getting the whole treatment. The lanes are wide (lots of extra space to work with), you never see it packed with traffic, and it would connect Victoria/Frederick/Krug/Lorraine/Ottawa/Fairway/King Streets, about half of which already have bike lanes. If you added some offshoots into the neighbourhoods you want to connect (like a spur that branched down Fergus Ave to reach Hiway Zehrs and the new Elevate condos), that could get you some connectivity that doesn't rely on cramming bike lanes onto already-busy King and Weber.

For Dellroy Ave specifically, I wonder if there's space to run a little MUT along the highway, behind the buildings all the way from Franklin to Dellroy/Wilfred, connecting those dead-end streets together? Probably would be a little noisy from the highway, but you wouldn't have to contend with the traffic on Weber, at least.

The train tracks running along King could be a logical place to put a MUT as a continuation of the River Rd bike lanes (west to Fairway and east to the Grand), and if I'm just spending imaginary money on all my wildest dreams, it would be fabulous to see a dedicated pedestrian/bike bridge spanning the Grand River near the Freeport Bridge. You could probably run a separated bike lane up King St until about Deer Ridge, although getting up to where the Sportsworld LRT station will eventually be built at Sportsworld Crossing Rd would be even better. Would love to see a bike path go right up Sportsworld Crossing Rd to the Park & Ride, with a big secure bike parking area to encourage people to cycle there instead of driving.

Putting bike infrastructure into the Sportsworld neighbourhood in general is probably going to be tricky. There's a lot of existing traffic, and King St is already going to lose space to the LRT tracks. There are some pretty big buffer spaces between the road and a lot of the buildings, though, so we might see the city/region buy up some a strip of that land to put towards that purpose.

[tomh009]

River Rd is well on the other side of the expressway, though. But take away the turning lanes from King St (which has lower speeds and far less volume than King St) and I think there is room for a pair of bike lanes there. And on the other side of Weber, East Ave (also low traffic) has plenty of space.

On the (Kitchener) south side of King St, the IHT and its Delta St extension are pretty critical.

[ac3r]

There are a couple excavators on site digging what I assume will be the hole for this. Interestingly, there's evidence of an existing foundation already poured, which I guess was put in decades ago when they were planning to build a second tower.

[KevinL]

Yes, this lot has been empty and sunken for as long as I can remember.