Hamilton Television City | ?m | 32s | Lamb Dev Corp | a—A

The red clay is the weathered upper portion of Queenston shale, exposed in much of the western GTA. This weaker shale underlies the more resistant dolostones to the west and is the reason we have the Niagara Escarpment and Niagara Falls.
 
The red clay is the weathered upper portion of Queenston shale, exposed in much of the western GTA. This weaker shale underlies the more resistant dolostones to the west and is the reason we have the Niagara Escarpment and Niagara Falls.

This formation has its own Wikipedia entry:

 
Can you share?
The March 2023 minor variance application plans have a ground floor plan showing the retail spaces:

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I count 7 different retail units - there is actually quite a lot of retail here.

For those who know Toronto development well, note that the loading space requires trucks to back out onto Hunter St W - this is strictly verboten in Toronto. Good to see Hamilton being more flexible as it creates a much nicer ground floor plan for development to not have to accommodate truck turn-around on site.
 
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The March 2023 minor variance application plans have a ground floor plan showing the retail spaces:

View attachment 526288

Definitely an improved retail layout above, but still too much frontage relative to depth. That leads to the curse of window film. Retailers have lots of back of house functions (washroom/office/storage); and typically also
need lots of shelf/display space that is customer-facing. Long windows aren't usable space except in restaurants and art galleries more or less.

For those who know Toronto development well, note that the loading spaces requires trucks to back out onto Hunter St W - this is strictly verboten in Toronto. Good to see Hamilton being more flexible as it creates a much nicer ground floor plan for development to not have to accomodate truck turn-around on site.

Agreed.
 
The March 2023 minor variance application plans have a ground floor plan showing the retail spaces:

View attachment 526288

I count 7 different retail units - there is actually quite a lot of retail here.

For those who know Toronto development well, note that the loading space requires trucks to back out onto Hunter St W - this is strictly verboten in Toronto. Good to see Hamilton being more flexible as it creates a much nicer ground floor plan for development to not have to accommodate truck turn-around on site.
does TO not allow trucks to back in to loading bays? I sorta assume that's whats happening here vs pulling in and backing out.
 
does TO not allow trucks to back in to loading bays? I sorta assume that's whats happening here vs pulling in and backing out.
Toronto requires all loading vehicles to turn around on-site. They must pull into the site from the street facing towards the site, and pull out of the site facing the street.

This results in some pretty terrible ground floor layouts and some particularly extreme solutions in some cases.. 8 Elm will be constructing a friggen turntable to comply with this requirement, for example, despite fronting onto a small local street with minimal traffic:

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They only allow them to back in / out on laneways, which admittingly, Hamilton doesn't do. Hamilton tries to get rid of it's laneways, requiring developers to either buy it from the city or build their own private laneway next door.

you get weird situations in Hamilton because of this, like 117 Jackson which is proposing a private laneway immediately adjacent to a public one, which the City won't allow to be upgraded:

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The turntable seems to be a neat idea though...
 
The turntable seems to be a neat idea though...
Neat, but wildly expensive when the truck just backing out would be totally fine.

Honestly, the reality is that the trucks will likely back out most of the time anyway.

Anecdotally the Loblaws on Queen W always has trucks backing out onto Richmond despite being able to turn around on site anyway as it’s simply easier. There isn’t enforcement to go with the physical design requirements.
 
83 Bloor is also proposing one. One Bloor (East) has one at grade, Trump / St. Regis has one on P1, as does First Canadian Place (along with a vehicular elevator capable of raising and lowering full 18 wheel semis).
I remember seeing this in Rotterdam and thinking it was creative - an exposed, outdoor truck lift so that loading can occur on the second level. Definitely unusual - and yes, they can back onto the street and the world doesn't end!

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