emphurent
Active Member
A very recent proposal in the very middle between Kitchener and Waterloo which is already seeing some early construction activity. This proposal is very close to the under construction Bright Building but in a more ideal location. This proposal offers a few interesting insights to those less familiar with the region and on the developer, that I will discuss in this post. This will be a bit of a longer post!
Chapter One: 900 King St W
To start here's a little massing mockup I made to demonstrate the location. It's directly on an LRT stop (both north and south here) while being very centrally located, next to the region's main hospital, a local grocery store (central fresh), along with being very close to the original Sunlife Financial offices which is a pretty major employer in the region (some more comments to make on it further down this post!)
The building is to be 25 stories, featuring a proposed 231 rental units.
The design shown here, by SRM Architects is fairly basic, very much intended to be an infill tower. The ground realm will feature retail, and 3 levels of parking (2 underground, 1 within the podium) for 108 parking spaces.
It continues the region's common use of cast in place concrete along much of the exterior being painted, as @interchange42 pointed out in the Charlie West thread. It seems to be that local architects are the ones making this choice, as the developer is brand new in Ontario and usually opts for window wall on their Edmonton portfolio.
(Documents sourced from city)
More on the developer, Cantiro Homes. They are a western Canada developer that mostly is in suburban and commercial development, this is their first foray into the Ontario market. They appear to be shifting to more high density models for their Ontario proposals. Interestingly of note, the developer states on their site they intend to build a large portfolio around the GTA and have projects in the works elsewhere beyond this one, I personally hope this means there will be another rental developer stepping up to the plate if this development is a baseline. I'd hate for any more suburban developers here, we need more developers experienced in higher density models.
Moving on, work on this project is already in early stages, with demo almost complete. This is very quick as the proposal was only made public a few weeks ago, approvals may be imminent nonetheless.
As I've gone over before, the development dynamics in Kitchener are vastly different from Toronto. I'm not fully aware of the full processes here and how they work, but I'm aware the area around the LRT has been made really easy to develop by council themselves. In part that may be due to the lack of proposals for council to go through (in comparison to Toronto's large quantity), but it always makes me confused watching developments take years through such a slow process to go through that is twice as short as this.
Demo of the exist small office on site:
(Image Source)
Nothing of loss in this demo, site was previously very underused.
Chapter Two: Sunlife, BentallGreenOak, and the precedent of this development.
The surrounding area is currently quite sporadic in its urban form, this won't do much to unify that but it will be an interesting precedent alongside some other nearby proposals. Much of the land around this is actually owned by BentallGreenOak (otherwise owned by Sunlife Financial). This includes: The block long parking lot, some of the buildings facing king and the small little houses on the north end of the Sunlife property.
But recently I've heard about the plans for the original two tower rental being sidelined for now after a few years of silence meaning the houses will likely be abandoned for a couple more years. But the long term plan is still to develop most of the underused land around the office, and with this development popping up nearby, one has to wonder the amount of precedent will be set here, especially as a possible future employment area, maybe an official midtown style destination. The main parking lot now being considered for redevelopment opens up a lot of opportunities for the area in general. And while official information is a while away likely, for now I have a little (very unofficial and inaccurate) massing diagram with context.
And to close out this post, I just wanna shed some light on one of my favourite buildings in the region that is located only a block from 900 King West, the original part of the Sunlife property.
Originally built in 1912, in what was basically farm fields between the two cities was the headquarters for Mutual Life Assurance Co. of Canada. It's designed by Frank Darling.
I was by the other day and took a couple photos.
Chapter One: 900 King St W
To start here's a little massing mockup I made to demonstrate the location. It's directly on an LRT stop (both north and south here) while being very centrally located, next to the region's main hospital, a local grocery store (central fresh), along with being very close to the original Sunlife Financial offices which is a pretty major employer in the region (some more comments to make on it further down this post!)
The building is to be 25 stories, featuring a proposed 231 rental units.
The design shown here, by SRM Architects is fairly basic, very much intended to be an infill tower. The ground realm will feature retail, and 3 levels of parking (2 underground, 1 within the podium) for 108 parking spaces.
It continues the region's common use of cast in place concrete along much of the exterior being painted, as @interchange42 pointed out in the Charlie West thread. It seems to be that local architects are the ones making this choice, as the developer is brand new in Ontario and usually opts for window wall on their Edmonton portfolio.
(Documents sourced from city)
More on the developer, Cantiro Homes. They are a western Canada developer that mostly is in suburban and commercial development, this is their first foray into the Ontario market. They appear to be shifting to more high density models for their Ontario proposals. Interestingly of note, the developer states on their site they intend to build a large portfolio around the GTA and have projects in the works elsewhere beyond this one, I personally hope this means there will be another rental developer stepping up to the plate if this development is a baseline. I'd hate for any more suburban developers here, we need more developers experienced in higher density models.
Moving on, work on this project is already in early stages, with demo almost complete. This is very quick as the proposal was only made public a few weeks ago, approvals may be imminent nonetheless.
As I've gone over before, the development dynamics in Kitchener are vastly different from Toronto. I'm not fully aware of the full processes here and how they work, but I'm aware the area around the LRT has been made really easy to develop by council themselves. In part that may be due to the lack of proposals for council to go through (in comparison to Toronto's large quantity), but it always makes me confused watching developments take years through such a slow process to go through that is twice as short as this.
Demo of the exist small office on site:
(Image Source)
Nothing of loss in this demo, site was previously very underused.
Chapter Two: Sunlife, BentallGreenOak, and the precedent of this development.
The surrounding area is currently quite sporadic in its urban form, this won't do much to unify that but it will be an interesting precedent alongside some other nearby proposals. Much of the land around this is actually owned by BentallGreenOak (otherwise owned by Sunlife Financial). This includes: The block long parking lot, some of the buildings facing king and the small little houses on the north end of the Sunlife property.
But recently I've heard about the plans for the original two tower rental being sidelined for now after a few years of silence meaning the houses will likely be abandoned for a couple more years. But the long term plan is still to develop most of the underused land around the office, and with this development popping up nearby, one has to wonder the amount of precedent will be set here, especially as a possible future employment area, maybe an official midtown style destination. The main parking lot now being considered for redevelopment opens up a lot of opportunities for the area in general. And while official information is a while away likely, for now I have a little (very unofficial and inaccurate) massing diagram with context.
And to close out this post, I just wanna shed some light on one of my favourite buildings in the region that is located only a block from 900 King West, the original part of the Sunlife property.
Originally built in 1912, in what was basically farm fields between the two cities was the headquarters for Mutual Life Assurance Co. of Canada. It's designed by Frank Darling.
I was by the other day and took a couple photos.
