King-Victoria Transit Hub

[Markster]

You would not like most Tokyo train stations.

Having been to Tokyo in April, I can say that they still certainly look like a station at ground level. The rail station entrance is always the most prominent entrance on a station building, with associated malls and office buildings being secondary.

[chutten]

You would not like most Tokyo train stations.

Having been to Tokyo in April, I can say that they still certainly look like a station at ground level.  The rail station entrance is always the most prominent entrance on a station building, with associated malls and office buildings being secondary.

Maybe tomh009 was referring to subway stations. The station in Roppongi Hills I remember being particularly difficult to both find and escape. (though that was at night, in the rain, so maybe my experience was a one-off).

Also: Oh man, have you tried the new 45deg view in Google Maps? Try that on Tokyo (maps.google.com, Tokyo. Satellite. Click the wee grid under the compass). It's amazing.

[tomh009]

You would not like most Tokyo train stations.

Having been to Tokyo in April, I can say that they still certainly look like a station at ground level.  The rail station entrance is always the most prominent entrance on a station building, with associated malls and office buildings being secondary.

There are hundreds of stations, major railway hubs (Tokyu and Shinagawa, for example) do look like stations.  But smaller stations are incorporated into buildings and even some larger ones (Shibuya, for example) can be hard to spot.  Japanese railways definitely prioritize function over form.

[DHLawrence]

There are two stations where the "doesn't look like a station" effect works in Canada: Hamilton Hunter Street (Hamilton GO Centre) and Montreal Gare Centrale. The designers need to take cues from them - or from Philly's Suburban Station and Cleveland's Terminal Tower.

[plam]

There are two stations where the "doesn't look like a station" effect works in Canada: Hamilton Hunter Street (Hamilton GO Centre) and Montreal Gare Centrale. The designers need to take cues from them - or from Philly's Suburban Station and Cleveland's Terminal Tower.

I wouldn't hold Montreal's Gare Centrale up as an example. It doesn't inspire a sense of place of being at a station. In fact you can barely see it at all from the outside. More info: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost...stcount=17

[Canard]

How about we reach a little higher? Calatrava's Gare de Lyon Saint-Exupéry, anyone? It even has Light Rail at the lower level operating as a high-speed downtown connector.

[ac3r]

Does anyone know the reasons that Kitchener doesn't have buildings higher than 19 stories?

Demand I'd guess?  It's certainly not a zoning issue as far as I know.

Well, I don't think that the zoning currently allows you to build very high.  Taking a look at some of them that are prevalent in the downtown core, I see things like maximum floor space ratios of 2.0.  You would need a huge plot of land, and a very skinny building to get 20 storeys out of that.

Of course, zoning is pretty much designed to make sure that any development that changes anything has to be reviewed and approved.  (See King St N for what happens when you upzone without attention to detail)

More realistically, the reason we don't see it is because developers haven't been interested in building it.  Building that tall is expensive, and you need people willing to pay for it.

For the longest time (and I'm thinking back at least...10 or 12 years) we had a by-law that wouldn't let anything really go above 12 floors in the core although I think there were one or two exceptions at the time, namely apartments built in the 1980s or so. Even just a decade or so ago, we were a fairly small city in Canadian terms. There was really no demand for anything so big. It was a mix of zoning laws and NIMBY's who just didn't want height; think of those mammoth, horribly dated pair of white apartment blocks just near the central library. When those went up, a lot of people in the surrounding areas were not pleased because it is a heritage area and when you own a 100+ year old home next to one of those things, it's not a nice sight to look out at. I also believe a lot of the council members weren't big on large projects either, but a lot of them have gone.

Now we're in 2015 and things have changed immensely so developers are much more free to propose larger designs. However as mentioned there isn't much demand for anything above 19 floors yet with some exceptions. The amount of retail downtown does not match the level of residential units yet and the same goes for office space. But once the current projects are finished - condos, the transit hub and certain businesses like the new Google building - you will definitely see a boom in building heights and density as the economy grows and diversifies. I would say...over the next decade or so you'll see plenty of buildings in the 21-25 floor range downtown. Uptown will probably be slower to develop because there isn't as much available land compared to Kitchener, where some of the lots being developed have been sitting underused or essentially vacant for well over a decade.

[curious_look]

For the longest time (and I'm thinking back at least...10 or 12 years) we had a by-law that wouldn't let anything really go above 12 floors in the core although I think there were one or two exceptions at the time, namely apartments built in the 1980s or so. Even just a decade or so ago, we were a fairly small city in Canadian terms. There was really no demand for anything so big. It was a mix of zoning laws and NIMBY's who just didn't want height; think of those mammoth, horribly dated pair of white apartment blocks just near the central library. When those went up, a lot of people in the surrounding areas were not pleased because it is a heritage area and when you own a 100+ year old home next to one of those things, it's not a nice sight to look out at. I also believe a lot of the council members weren't big on large projects either, but a lot of them have gone.

This complex seems like a planning failure in general - slapping that kind of density in a neighborhood of much less - no wonder people already living in the neighborhood were upset! That said, I live in that complex. For me, the location at that price can't be beat . . .  so I am rather grateful for that odd choice. 

[BuildingScout]

The irony is that because of those NIMBYs blocking the natural growth of downtown the whole thing collapsed into the current urban blight that Kitchener has spent so much of the last decade trying to revert. Their opposition lead to much larger loses than if they had allowed rezoning and sold their two storey houses to developers at higher densities.

[panamaniac]

The irony is that because of those NIMBYs blocking the natural growth of downtown the whole thing collapsed into the current urban blight that Kitchener has spent so much of the last decade trying to revert. Their opposition lead to much larger loses than if they had allowed rezoning and sold their two storey houses to developers at higher densities.

I can't think of too many Downtown projects that were blocked by NIMBY pushback.  I think maybe the apartment on Queen St near Mill came out a couple of storeys shorter than originally proposed.  There was the successful resistance to the widening of Victoria St between Park and Belmont.  Other than that, I can't think of any examples.

[ac3r]

The irony is that because of those NIMBYs blocking the natural growth of downtown the whole thing collapsed into the current urban blight that Kitchener has spent so much of the last decade trying to revert.

It goes back a lot further than the last decade or so, but you're correct with them finally trying to revive it.

Where Kitchener really went wrong was around when it developed Market Square. This was one of many malls that were developed in the 1970s to 1980s in Waterloo Region and what they did was build one in every ward of the city. They were just a common thing in urban planning within North America during this time in the 20th century. Suddenly, growing out of nothing, was Fairview Park Mall, Stanely Park Mall, Highland Hills Mall, Frederick Mall. Downtown got Market Square and if that wasn't bad enough, they also built the one that now houses the Manulife offices a few blocks away (I can't for the life of me remember its original name, it was so long ago).

While Market Square did indeed host a farmers market, all of these were in all practical sense, simply dreadful malls. They killed all proper retail that was ever downtown. Around the 1990s these malls were themselves slowly dying and became ghost towns. Downtown became somewhere nobody had a reason to go unless it was to buy crack, you were a regular at some of the sketchy bars, were a member of a gang (it was mostly white pride ones operating down there in the 90s, although eventually the punk scene and anti-fascist groups drove them out) or you were unlucky enough to live there. After a string of fires over the years in the core - that were often rumoured to have been started by the building owners themselves to collect insurance money - gutted a lot of historical buildings, there was finally a desire to try rebuilding. From about, 1999 to 2005 (or so?) things were kind of stuck in limbo with bickering council members trying to decide what to do, but eventually the city started to reinvent things. Luckily The Record moved into Market Square, they rebuilt the farmers market, Laurier built their satellite campus there and then some residential developers took a gamble with turning empty factories into beautiful condos.

Once this transit station opens up and the LRT gets going, there won't be any stopping future development downtown and uptown (and we're finally at the point where there isn't much room for the suburbs to grow). I think the best strategy now would be to continue developing residential projects; commercial and office will soon follow. RIM may be in slump, but with Google and other tech start ups growing downtown, you'll see a lot more people coming to this region to both work and live. We're in a unique position because, for example, neighbouring cities like London don't have the schools and companies we have, and places like Mississauga and Burlington are themselves so big now they're becoming congested in their own ways.

[panamaniac]

The irony is that because of those NIMBYs blocking the natural growth of downtown the whole thing collapsed into the current urban blight that Kitchener has spent so much of the last decade trying to revert.

It goes back a lot further than the last decade or so, but you're correct with them finally trying to revive it.

Where Kitchener really went wrong was around when it developed Market Square. This was one of many malls that were developed in the 1970s to 1980s in Waterloo Region and what they did was build one in every ward of the city. They were just a common thing in urban planning within North America during this time in the 20th century. Suddenly, growing out of nothing, was Fairview Park Mall, Stanely Park Mall, Highland Hills Mall, Frederick Mall. Downtown got Market Square and if that wasn't bad enough, they also built the one that now houses the Manulife offices a few blocks away (I can't for the life of me remember its original name, it was so long ago).

While Market Square did indeed host a farmers market, all of these were in all practical sense, simply dreadful malls. They killed all proper retail that was ever downtown. Around the 1990s these malls were themselves slowly dying and became ghost towns. Downtown became somewhere nobody had a reason to go unless it was to buy crack, you were a regular at some of the sketchy bars, were a member of a gang (it was mostly white pride ones operating down there in the 90s, although eventually the punk scene and anti-fascist groups drove them out) or you were unlucky enough to live there. After a string of fires over the years in the core - that were often rumoured to have been started by the building owners themselves to collect insurance money - gutted a lot of historical buildings, there was finally a desire to try rebuilding. From about, 1999 to 2005 (or so?) things were kind of stuck in limbo with bickering council members trying to decide what to do, but eventually the city started to reinvent things. Luckily The Record moved into Market Square, they rebuilt the farmers market, Laurier built their satellite campus there and then some residential developers took a gamble with turning empty factories into beautiful condos.

Once this transit station opens up and the LRT gets going, there won't be any stopping future development downtown and uptown (and we're finally at the point where there isn't much room for the suburbs to grow). I think the best strategy now would be to continue developing residential projects; commercial and office will soon follow. RIM may be in slump, but with Google and other tech start ups growing downtown, you'll see a lot more people coming to this region to both work and live. We're in a unique position because, for example, neighbouring cities like London don't have the schools and companies we have, and places like Mississauga and Burlington are themselves so big now they're becoming congested in their own ways.

King Centre.

[tomh009]

The irony is that because of those NIMBYs blocking the natural growth of downtown the whole thing collapsed into the current urban blight that Kitchener has spent so much of the last decade trying to revert. Their opposition lead to much larger loses than if they had allowed rezoning and sold their two storey houses to developers at higher densities.

I think that should say "so much of the last three decades" ...

[tomh009]

Where Kitchener really went wrong was around when it developed Market Square. This was one of many malls that were developed in the 1970s to 1980s in Waterloo Region and what they did was build one in every ward of the city. They were just a common thing in urban planning within North America during this time in the 20th century. Suddenly, growing out of nothing, was Fairview Park Mall, Stanley Park Mall, Highland Hills Mall, Frederick Mall. Downtown got Market Square and if that wasn't bad enough, they also built the one that now houses the Manulife offices a few blocks away (I can't for the life of me remember its original name, it was so long ago).

That was the King Centre you are referring to, I believe.

I stumbled onto a nice history of Kitchener recently, with good coverage of the Market Square debacle.  Worth a read, if you haven't seen it before.  Written by John English for Maclean's back in 2011:
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/kitch...-waterloo/

[eizenstriet]

ac3r:

Your chronicle of the interconnected sources of development malaise in Downtown Kitchener is a little more cogent than "The NIMBYs did it!".