Hamilton 500 Upper Wellington Street | 26.81m | 6s | Fengate | Core Architects

Drive by photos.
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I'm really looking forward to this building. Nice colour palette and proportions. As I'm not familiar with the mountain apart from Concession and Lime Ridge, what is the likelihood that a retailer could successfully operate on this site, as the render details?
 
I'm really looking forward to this building. Nice colour palette and proportions. As I'm not familiar with the mountain apart from Concession and Lime Ridge, what is the likelihood that a retailer could successfully operate on this site, as the render details?
Depends on if the price is right, but I think they could likely find a few successful businesses on the ground floor. Depends on if Liuna wants to use these retail units for profit or for a tax write-off.

It's a bit isolated, but not extremely so. There are two commercial units occupied directly North and a bunch of commercial to the south, though largely in plazas. I could see this area of the mountain densifying over the next decade though, creating a nice arterial commercial zone on Concession, Upper Wellington, then down Fennel or Mohawk over the more mature commercial strip of Upper James (where I'm surprised this kind of development didn't appear first). Though as @innsertnamehere always says, the developers own what they own.
 
Is there a tax credit for developers for including ground floor retail in a development? Haven't heard of that.
If you can't rent out a commercial unit, you can claim rental loss. Based on the unreasonable prices I've seen on some commercial units, it appears some companies that own multiple commercial units with rent some, and use others for loss.

An example would be Company A:
2 retail units, leased for $3000/month each ($6000/month). Let's say minor overhead of owning the retail units is $1000/month total ($5000/month profit, which is taxed).

1 other retail unit for lease for $4500/month, with overhead of $250 (because it's vacant, so less cost).

Company A can claim $5000/month profit, minus $4750/month loss from the other unit, making the profit taxable around $250/month.

Once the market is strong enough to justify that rent price, it makes sense to try to rent it out because taxable income will still allow them to profit more, but there are diminishing returns with regard to management costs, and with new units you can rent them out for insane prices with some sort of justification (you can't have a rental on the market for loss advertised at like 10x the average market rent, as that would seem suspicious). It's why you see units for rent for like 10 years. Largely owned by individuals or companies with multiple properties using one loss leader to reduce taxes on another actual profit, and they deal with fewer tenants.
 
Funny how close this is to downtown but it feels a world away. I live downtown, and rarely rarely go up on the mountain. Like maybe once every couple of months or more. Totally different city to me.
Couldn't agree more, the escarpment really is a barrier between the city and the suburbs. The Mountain has little to no public realm, only public street that's worth utilizing as a pedestrian is Concession Ave. Really hope Hamilton Mountain transitions its lacklustre plazas into my mixed use spaces moving forward.
 
Wish there was a more direct connection from Downtown to Concession. If there was an LRT that somehow linked the two, Concession basically would be part of downtown. But for now, like I said, may as well be part of another municipality.
 
Couldn't agree more, the escarpment really is a barrier between the city and the suburbs. The Mountain has little to no public realm, only public street that's worth utilizing as a pedestrian is Concession Ave. Really hope Hamilton Mountain transitions its lacklustre plazas into my mixed use spaces moving forward.
I think Upper Wellington, and to a greater degree Upper James have potential, but much of the mountain is arterial stroad non-places.
 
Funny how close this is to downtown but it feels a world away. I live downtown, and rarely rarely go up on the mountain. Like maybe once every couple of months or more. Totally different city to me.
Couldn't agree more, the escarpment really is a barrier between the city and the suburbs. The Mountain has little to no public realm, only public street that's worth utilizing as a pedestrian is Concession Ave. Really hope Hamilton Mountain transitions its lacklustre plazas into my mixed use spaces moving forward.

Ok, hear me out:
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