Lake Ontario
Active Member
12/12/2023
- Thread starter Lachlan Holmes
- Start date
TheHonestMaple
Active Member
This picture really illustrates how much more of a 'city' Hamilton is than compared to KW. This is a real urban environment not a sprawling suburb.
ProjectEnd
Superstar
Is there above-grade parking here? Couldn't find the right photo to see for myself. @innsertnamehere / @Lachlan Holmes / @Chris R.
TheHonestMaple
Active Member
Yes, most of the parking is above grade. I think there is one underground level only.
Great shots @Lake Ontario , the Hamilton skyline is really coming together!
innsertnamehere
Superstar
There is, yes, like most Hamilton projects.
You can see it in @Chris R. 's photo from a little while ago:
It's the gold-clad levels immediately above the ground floor. From what I recall, it's 3 levels of above-grade parking. Thankfully it's well shielded so isn't particularly visible.
Hamilton requires a parking ratio of around 0.5 for residential uses downtown, likely a bit higher here owing to the number of large multi-bedroom units which have higher rates.
Sales prices can't justify 5-6 levels of underground parking, generally speaking, and the city doesn't prohibit above-grade garages like Toronto does, so most projects have above-grade parking of some kind. Most have been pretty good about hiding it though so that it's not particularly visible. This is a good example, as is Cobalt and 75 James which have wrapped it with units so that it's not visible.
Hamilton looks like it will be eliminating parking minimums downtown next year however, so I expect it to become less common. Market demand for parking in Hamilton is still fairly strong though so I don't imagine it will disappear.
Koops65
Senior Member
KW is a city unto itself. It's not a suburb of anything...
TheHonestMaple
Active Member
It has a (well two) tiny downtown, with sprawling suburbia - is what I meant.
ZEBuilder
Active Member
If we're getting technically you could say there is really 5 different downtowns if Cambridge is included but that's an entirely different conversation.
BCTed
Active Member
I dunno... Kitchener is filling in quite a bit...
ZEBuilder
Active Member
That's also a relatively old picture, it's from early 2022 just based on the progress at Breithaupt Block. I don't have a recent picture but here's another one from around the same time (slightly later by about a month or two) showing all of downtown.
All the buildings with tower cranes up have since been completed (except the Drewlo site) and now 900 King St W, Station Park Tower C and Tek Tower all have cranes up which will make the left side of this picture a lot taller. The right side of the picture is pretty barren with just the Drewlo site, however once Auburn starts on The Metz it will fill in quite nicely.
TheHonestMaple
Active Member
Personally I just find walking around downtown Kitchener or downtown Waterloo, you don't really feel like you're in a big city. You feel like you're in a small city, that happened to recently have a bunch of condos going up - spaced quite far apart. Walking around in downtown Hamilton, you really feel like you're in a bustling big city. Bigger than the population would suggest. It's an old downtown, not a new one like KW.
ZEBuilder
Active Member
There's nothing wrong with being a small city but the urbanization and condos close to each other is coming it just takes time, Hamilton has always had a larger downtown then KW but KW also has two downtowns/uptowns for a urban area of similar population, if there was only 1 downtown it would feel a lot larger. Even so downtown Kitchener 10 years ago is a vastly different place than it is today and it will certainly be significantly different in 10 more years. Just look at the King/Victoria intersection from 2014 vs now, in 2014 the only large building within 500m was the UW Pharmacy building. Now you have the entire Google complex, Station Park A and B, 1 Victoria, 100 Victoria Tower 1&2, Glove Box, Garment St Condos all complete and then TEK Tower and Station Park C under construction. In another 10 years 417 King, Station Park D and E, Vic/Park Tower 1, 2 and 3, 142 Victoria, and the transit hub should all be under construction in some form.
The King/Victoria corner isn't the only corner seeing major changes though, take the block bound by Frederick/Benton, Weber, Ontario and Joseph, in that block in 2014 the tallest building was The Regency, now you have Duke Tower, in another 10 years there will also be 10 Duke St W, Q Condos, 88 Queen St S, and 149 Ontario St N which are all 25+ floors. The city has also installed separated bike lanes along Ontario and Joseph which would have been insane to think of doing 10 years ago.
Now lets go to the "east end" of downtown around Borden Station, 10 years ago it was very much industrial, now the signs of change are starting with demolition and site clearing occurring at various locations, in 10 years East Gate, 1253 King St E, 1001 King St E, 926 King St E, 787 King St E Tower 1&2, 50 Borden Ave S Tower 1&2, should all be complete or under construction.
Sure it may not feel like you're in a big city yet but it certainly feels a lot larger than it did in 2014 and it will certainly feel even bigger in 10 years.
TheHonestMaple
Active Member
Oh KW is definitely growing, and i'm excited to see it happening. It's a fantastic city, and there is much for Hamilton to envy. You guys have a clean downtown, with a modern transit system, tech companies and good jobs, etc. I'm just saying Hamilton has the urban bones that not a lot of cities in Canada have. Arguably I would say really only Toronto and Montreal are the other two cities that have a real urban core like Hamilton.
Towered
Superstar
Plus KW is building 50+ storey towers, while Hamilton isn't building anything near that tall.