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Uptown Waterloo grows Up

4 December 2008 photo update: horrible!

Yuck, uptown waterloo--make it 90% of the k-w region, is a nightmare from an urbanist's pov. Take a look at the "density" developing along King St North in the student ghetto--roughly from WLU campus to Columbia.

Frightening to think of the morons behind these buildings!

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Finally, a photo of Bauer Lofts, from King and Union looking northwest towards uptown Waterloo.
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First Gulf deserve a lot of kudos for the job they did with Waterloo Town Square....every time I look at that project I am more impressed.
 
Ummm if you're trying to make KW look bad, that's fine, but don't group Uptown Waterloo in with that. Uptown is beautiful and quite urban and vibrant given that it's a Southern Ontario city. And the Bauer project is of a very high calibre, even if it were in Toronto it would be a project of decent quality.
 
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I've always thought Kitchener was nicer then uptown waterloo.
Uptown waterloo feels to sparse on King street.
 
Those big parking lots/the mall on King Street Uptown are redeveloped into a very urban series of office/retail complexes now.

Kitchener in comparison is... blegh.
 
Are you sure you're talking about uptown Waterloo ... I might be confusing the line between that and downtown Kitchener, when does it end?

Uptown Waterloo has a small town feel to it. Kitchener doesn't from what I recall but again I'm not sure where on King street that changes.
 
Yeah, Uptown Waterloo doesn't feel like a city at all; rather, it reminds me of many small mid-western Ontario towns--like Chesley, Elmira, Wingham, Listowel, etc. Blah. It's nice, but not dense enough to be a city.

Kitchener feels more like a city, even if the downtown is in the toilet, and has been ruined by the parking lots.
 
Okay timeout for a second here.

Have you been to Yorkville before ... that's a bit of stretch.

It feels like Yonge and Lawerence ... maybe if that ...

And let me be clear ... I don't mean the stretch just north of Eglinton, that's too main stream / dense comapred to uptown waterloo.

I mean the stretch North of Yonge and Lawerence.

If it feels like yorkville to you I'm probably going to ask what you had to drink ... then follow by I hope you were on the bus and not driving :) jk

Sorry, I just keep tying to think about it - I can't fathem how anyone would imagine it's anything like Yorkville ... and I've been to both enough times.
It feels more like the downtown areas you see in almost every small town in Ontario! But nicer / bigger ... maybe ... wow.

Yorkville ... yea okay.
 
Anyone have any recent pics of Waterloo Town Square? Usually I'd be in Waterloo but I've been on a work term in Toronto so I haven't seen the progress since it was a sandbox.

I will agree with others and say it is dangerous to compare Uptown Waterloo to any neighbourhood in Toronto. Parts of it are charming, and it has certainly come together with recent projects, but it is not nearly as dense nor as urban. I hope with the eventual rapid transit corridor, Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge will finally grow together-- this is the only way it the area will become a "city" in the Toronto POV. It will get there.
 
Regarding those pictures, are they all uptown waterloo or are some of them in Kitchener ?
Where's the diving line?

Anyway ... yea, those are good!
 
Uptown Waterloo is generally King Street between Central and William.

Downtown Kitchener is generally King Street between Victoria and Frederick (though one can argue it is Cedar, to include 'Chinatown' and the Farmer's Market).

The boundary between Waterloo and Kitchener is located just south (or east) of Union Street. You can see exactly where it is in the aerial image by looking at the asphalt on the street. Waterloo resurfaced their section of King more recently.

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Holy shit! When I lived in Waterloo as a student, shady slumlords were hastily constructing student rental behind the back of dilapidated 50s bungalows. They generally were of the lowest architectural calibre known to man, usually giant three storey tenements stapled together out of vinyl siding and brick that tried to echo the modest architecture of the bungalows out front.

I never knew this sort of slumlording would extend to them building highrises.
 
Yeah, I mean they have the right idea, densifying the entire city, but the execution in most cases is just pooooor. The one shown above is a prime example. The building has no architectural merit, it's a stucco box with cheap facading, no retail, and an obtrusive hydro box right on the front lawn. Yeesh. At least they didn't put the parking out front.
 
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