Province promotes building up -- intensification
Several condominium projects in Hamilton, including creative utilization of a former church facade
By Mark Schadenberg
Intensification
is what the Province of Ontario calls this practise in their legislation
entitled the Provincial Policy Statement (2005 and 2014).
For
developers and builders it translates into building up and not out,
and creating more condominium projects.
It's
certainly the story of the summer of 2014 in the core of Hamilton.
As
football fans in the Steel City patiently waited for the new home of
the Tiger-Cats (Tim Hortons Field; www.ticats.ca) to complete
construction (story for another day), the massive changes in the
skyline of Hamilton can be seen in several new (some under construction
already) and proposed condo complexes.
The
Hamilton Spectator has compiled a list of more than 20 multi-unit new
complexes projected or now under construction.
The
former James Street Baptist Church is interesting with its
transformation and an addition of 30 floors and 250 or more condo
apartment units as well. Called The Connolly after its original
architect (it open in the early 1880's) Joseph Connelly, lots of
captivating details can be viewed and discovered at
www.stantonrenaissance.com
as this appears to me anyway as a stunning method of maintaining
heritage (the original facade and one tower still stand from the
original church) and the old Gothic style of church design and
simultaneously creating both central business/office space and a
residential condo to be 30 stories tall. To top it off, the
heating/cooling system will be geothermal.
Site
plan approval from Hamilton city council could occur as early as
mid-September.
Total
cost will be in the $80 million range.
"What
makes Hamilton unique is that this is happening in a historic space
in an established city. Burlington, Mississauga, Vaughan, they don't
have the 150 years of social fabric to work with," says Jason
Thorne, the city's new senior manager of planning and economic
development. "That means we have to approach this carefully."
One
question that Hamilton council will debate with developers over the
next few years is an apparent and obvious conflict between city
revenue in necessary development charges for new residential growth
and its accompanying service versus the builders' goal of maintaining
realistic costs which later can be transferred to reasonable sale
prices for the new condos. Bottom line for Hamilton is that the municipality (Like all residential centres, including Woodstock) must entice attractive and necessary residential households of all sorts, but abide by the PPS and also not make costs and policies too excessive for builders.
By
the way, even though shovels have not hit the ground, the Stanton
Renaissance folks are certainly compiling a registration list.
A
CMHC report in September of 2012 noted that
condominiums represented 10.8 per cent of the home ownership market
in 2006 in the Hamilton market, compared to just 3.3 per cent in
1981.
FRIENDLY CITY
In
Woodstock, meanwhile, works continues on transforming a Harvey Woods
factory on VanSittart into modest rental apartments (www.indwell.ca),
and the city also witnessed about five years ago the remarkable
evolution of a Paquette sock factory into a rental apartment
building, plus two former schools into condominiums (Broadway and
Chapel), plus a church on Winniett Street into an income property of apartments.
LINKS:
www.stinsonschool.com
2012 Story:
http://www.thespec.com/news-story/2115589-the-condominium-conundrum/
Mark
Schadenberg, Sales
Representative
Senior
Real Estate Specialist (SRES designation)
Royal
LePage Triland Realty
757
Dundas St, Woodstock
www.wesellwoodstock.com
(519)
537-1553, cell or text
Email:
mschadenberg@rogers.com
Twitter:
markroyallepage
Facebook:
Mark Schadenberg, Royal LePage Triland
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