Manulife (King Centre) redevelopment project

[ac3r]

Doesn't GRH have rights to a lot of that parking? Afaik the hospital staff use that for staff parking so redeveloping it will be hard unless we want to shaft health care workers even more, many of which drive from out of town. I've always thought it would be a great place to redevelop but I think the hospital relies on it for staff parking since they have thousands of employees (and very little money to sink into another parking garage).

I believe you may be thinking about the Sun Life lot, not the Manulife Lot

Oh you're right. I was looking at this post on my phone and didn't really zoom in on the picture.

[tomh009]

It's worse than that, it's owned by 100s of individual owners.

But money solves a lot of problems. If the land is sufficiently valuable, they could probably convince 2/3rds of the owners to work through a sufficiently non-disruptive plan.

That being said, while I like big developments, I think there are tons of smaller parcels. Like, most of Charles St. is parking...these I think are the real opportunity if only we can eliminate the obstacles to developing these kinds of things.

Turns out that where I live (condo townhouses), the parking (which is immediately outside my unit) is actually exclusive-use common area. I don't know how Kaufman is set up, but it may be like that, so that only the condo corp needs to be convinced, which is easier.

If it's not assigned parking (and I don't believe Kaufman Lofts has that) you still need approval of the owners of two thirds of the units in order to sell a substantial portion of common elements (and I'm sure this would qualify as substantial). So, not impossible, but no slam dunk, either.

[taylortbb]

I don't know how Kaufman is set up, but it may be like that, so that only the condo corp needs to be convinced, which is easier.

If you look in the Kitchener GIS system a number of parking spots in the lot are shown as property boundaries, suggesting they're not common elements of the condo, which I believe would show as one parcel (all other condo parking lots I've seen do). I'm not sure about this, it could just be some artifact of how the condo was registered, but it makes me think you might need to convince each individual parking spot owner.

[jamincan]

If you look at the parcel descriptions, the ones that are multiple parking spots are clearly joined from the original plan (PLAN 374 PT LOTS 58 TO 61 RP 58R15884 PTS 65 66 69 TO 92 105 TO 124, as one example). It definitely seems that each spot had a separate title, which is astonishing if true, as I can't see why the city would accept that at all. Perhaps at the time they were just happy to have some development downtown. Generally policy avoids lot fragmentation wherever possible, and individual titles to parking spots takes that to the nth degree.

[tomh009]

Our condo building has deeded parking spaces (and storage lockers!), with each one attached to a specific unit. However, the city's GIS system does not show those spaces as individual properties. I think having them registered as individual properties would be far more work -- and would also mean that the city would need to track and assess property taxes individually.

[plam]

Turns out that where I live (condo townhouses), the parking (which is immediately outside my unit) is actually exclusive-use common area. I don't know how Kaufman is set up, but it may be like that, so that only the condo corp needs to be convinced, which is easier.

If it's not assigned parking (and I don't believe Kaufman Lofts has that) you still need approval of the owners of two thirds of the units in order to sell a substantial portion of common elements (and I'm sure this would qualify as substantial). So, not impossible, but no slam dunk, either.

I think it does; at least the place I was housesitting had an assigned parking lot. But yes, it would seem to make sense that selling common elements needs permission. Maybe redevelopment doesn't if they were going to hold on to possession. May be moot if it's all individual title anyway.

[ijmorlan]

Our condo building has deeded parking spaces (and storage lockers!), with each one attached to a specific unit. However, the city's GIS system does not show those spaces as individual properties. I think having them registered as individual properties would be far more work -- and would also mean that the city would need to track and assess property taxes individually.

Yes, I don’t know what’s up with those Kaufman parking spaces. Lots of condos also have exclusive use common elements — our backyard in the townhouses on McDougall was like that. They have specific borders, and are for the specific use of particular units, but the borders aren’t shown on the property map. Instead, it’s just one big parcel with multiple records, one for each unit, and the condo declaration (or rather, an appendix) gives the actual layout of the buildings and exclusive use areas.

I’ve sometimes wondered about things like this and have not found it easy to find information. I have on a couple of occasions tried to find a list of all the condo corporations, without success.

[nms]

I’ve sometimes wondered about things like this and have not found it easy to find information. I have on a couple of occasions tried to find a list of all the condo corporations, without success.

If you had all the time in the world, you could search here at the Condiminium Authority of Ontario Directory.  The only challenge is that you would have to go through one corporation at a time (eg Waterloo North Condominium Corporation #1 was incorporated in November 1971 at 43 Margaret Ave in Kitchener; Waterloo South Condominium Corporation #1 was incorporated on October 10, 1975 at 22 Cathay St (or maybe its 235 Ferguson Ave) in  Cambridge).

As a historical side note, "Waterloo North" was the provincial riding until 1999 (now mostly Waterloo and Kitchener-Centre) and "Waterloo South" existed until 1975 when it too was dissolved.

[ijmorlan]

I’ve sometimes wondered about things like this and have not found it easy to find information. I have on a couple of occasions tried to find a list of all the condo corporations, without success.

If you had all the time in the world, you could search here at the Condiminium Authority of Ontario Directory.  The only challenge is that you would have to go through one corporation at a time (eg Waterloo North Condominium Corporation #1 was incorporated in November 1971 at 43 Margaret Ave in Kitchener; Waterloo South Condominium Corporation #1 was incorporated on October 10, 1975 at 22 Cathay St (or maybe its 235 Ferguson Ave) in  Cambridge).

Thanks for this. I didn’t realize that existed; or maybe it didn’t last time I looked (I think the CAO is fairly recent). Very interesting! And good to see confirmation of my belief that the “S” in “WSCC” stands for South, not Standard.

[tomh009]

If you had all the time in the world, you could search here at the Condiminium Authority of Ontario Directory.  The only challenge is that you would have to go through one corporation at a time (eg Waterloo North Condominium Corporation #1 was incorporated in November 1971 at 43 Margaret Ave in Kitchener; Waterloo South Condominium Corporation #1 was incorporated on October 10, 1975 at 22 Cathay St (or maybe its 235 Ferguson Ave) in  Cambridge).

Thanks for this. I didn’t realize that existed; or maybe it didn’t last time I looked (I think the CAO is fairly recent). Very interesting! And good to see confirmation of my belief that the “S” in “WSCC” stands for South, not Standard.

That's the confusing bit ... if you search for "Waterloo" and "1", you will get links to both of these:

• WATERLOO NORTH CONDOMINIUM CORPORATION NO. 1
  
• WATERLOO SOUTH CONDOMINIUM CORPORATION NO. 1
  

But if you search for something more recent, such as "Waterloo" and "666", you will get:

• WATERLOO STANDARD CONDOMINIUM CORPORATION NO. 666
  

And that's WSCC as well!

[ijmorlan]

Thanks for this. I didn’t realize that existed; or maybe it didn’t last time I looked (I think the CAO is fairly recent). Very interesting! And good to see confirmation of my belief that the “S” in “WSCC” stands for South, not Standard.

That's the confusing bit ... if you search for "Waterloo" and "1", you will get links to both of these:

• WATERLOO NORTH CONDOMINIUM CORPORATION NO. 1
  
• WATERLOO SOUTH CONDOMINIUM CORPORATION NO. 1
  

But if you search for something more recent, such as "Waterloo" and "666", you will get:

• WATERLOO STANDARD CONDOMINIUM CORPORATION NO. 666
  

And that's WSCC as well!

Interesting! Searching under Waterloo for 260 gives me “WATERLOO CONDOMINIUM CORPORATION NO. 260”, so it appears there are some that are just plain “Waterloo”. So the drop-down seems a bit different from a list of condominium regions even though it looks like it should be just that. I’m guessing they merged North and South into just Waterloo and then added the Standard later, but I’m not certain. Still weird that just a simple detail of how condominiums operate would be so hard to dig up.

[Lebronj23]

Does anyone know the status of the large parking lot? Is it still owned by Manulife or did they sell? I haven’t seen any action on it since that 25 storey tower was planned then scrapped back in 2017ish

[tomh009]

Does anyone know the status of the large parking lot? Is it still owned by Manulife or did they sell? I haven’t seen any action on it since that 25 storey tower was planned then scrapped back in 2017ish

Kitchener's GIS system says that Manulife still owns it.

[Joedelay Highhoe]

I think Google leased the office space, which includes parking. I doubt we'll see development in this lot for at least a few more years.

[KevinL]

I think Google leased the office space, which includes parking. I doubt we'll see development in this lot for at least a few more years.

Surely they'll move out once Breithaupt St 3 opens. The question is if another office tenant moves in, or Manulife makes a change.