Hamilton 125 Napier Street | 132.06m | 41s | Vrancor Development | NEUF

innsertnamehere said:
rents are lower so it's harder to be profitable in Hamilton. For years Vranich would play games to get his hard costs as low as possible and that was the only way to make money in the Hamilton market. nobody else wanted to play those games, so it was left to Vranich.

Rents in Hamilton have shot up the last few years so it's now easier for projects to work financially. We are seeing other developers enter the market now as a result - Slate, Empire, Emblem, Lamb, BentallGreenOak, etc.

ultimately it comes down to who owns the land as well. A lot of the land in the downtown is owned by a couple of long-standing Hamilton developers, including Vranich.
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Lamb has always been super public about which properties they own, while Vrancor is quite secretive. Other than the property on Main E with the City Housing portion, I don't know that we know of any other properties owned by Vrancor that they plan to develop.
 
Would love to know who owns the old Robinson's and Royal Bank lots. How many decades have those key sites sat either fully unused or as a surface parking lot. If any site could be allowed to exceed the height limit, that would get my vote.
 
TheHonestMaple said:
where?
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The two properties adjacent to each other for the mid block on James S? Between CIBC (king) and the Piggott Sunlife (main) buildings.
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The stupidest thing is the old robinsons plot isn't even used as a parking lot - its used for NOTHING - its the most completely useless plot of land in the entire downtown core because they passed a law that stated buildings demolished could no longer be converted into parking lots I believe.. At least put an art exhibit there or something.. use it in some way..

the second most useless space being the area on top of jackson square of course..
 
Blanchard owns that from my understanding.

The odd thing is that a few years ago he got permission from council to operate the empty lot as a temporary parking lot in addition to the other empty lot he owns at 20 Jackson St W while he was supposedly going to renovate 18 King. 20 Jackson got converted to parking, but he hasn't done the same for the old Robinsons property, despite that lot being basically the most expensive in the city.
 
Chronamut said:
The stupidest thing is the old robinsons plot isn't even used as a parking lot - its used for NOTHING - its the most completely useless plot of land in the entire downtown core because they passed a law that stated buildings demolished could no longer be converted into parking lots I believe.. At least put an art exhibit there or something.. use it in some way..

the second most useless space being the area on top of jackson square of course..
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What about that ugly spot near the "Downtown Hamilton" sign on King and Wellington? That spot always annoyed me too.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Blanchard owns that from my understanding.

The odd thing is that a few years ago he got permission from council to operate the empty lot as a temporary parking lot in addition to the other empty lot he owns at 20 Jackson St W while he was supposedly going to renovate 18 King. 20 Jackson got converted to parking, but he hasn't done the same for the old Robinsons property, despite that lot being basically the most expensive in the city.
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ugh.. blanchard has such a bad reputation in the gore park area - from letting the ones kiddie corner rot until they fall down to keeping this plot empty.. slumlord..
 
Okay, so the Planning Committee today shed some light on what the heck is going on here. It seems Vrancor submitted an application. The time limit was coming up, so they sent a resubmission (the newer design) right before the deadline for the city to review. This caused the developer to appeal to OLT for non-decision. This has caused all staff commentary to be private as a result because it is now consider a legal matter.
 
KingJames said:
Wonder if that is a more expeditious way to get through all the red tape.
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I mean, it probably is, and they obviously think it will be approved at OLT otherwise they wouldn't do that. Likely LRT will push that approval.

Kind of a scummy way to do it though, which Vrancor doesn't seem to mind, and I'm not the least surprised by.

Councillor Kreotsch made a good point today though, which is that if this is approved by the OLT it shows a continued failure of the existing zoning by-law and that there may be a need to revisit.
 
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