General Urban Waterloo Updates and Rumours

[ijmorlan]

It would be nice to eliminate the mall’s surface parking in favour of incorporating it into the parking podium of the new building. Make the podium enough bigger to account for all the spaces in the current mall parking lot (in addition to whatever spaces are intended for building residents) and make the rest of the site either low rise commercial or just open space.

[nms]

The flood risk is the reason why the Uptown Parkade has no walls on the main level. Since it sits more or less on top of the now tunneled Laurel Creek, the Parkade serves as the emergency outlet should a major flood event occur. If Laurel Creek were to burst its banks or overwhelm the dam at Caroline St, it would flood parallel to the LRT tracks, through the parking garage and into the floodway on the other side.

[Momo26]

Anyone's guess

https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...354aa.html

[tomh009]

Anyone's guess

https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...354aa.html

Developer Paul Leveck can’t say when he will sell enough new condos to build the twin towers he has proposed in the heart of Waterloo’s downtown.

“The market is stalled,” he told city council this week in seeking planning approval. “As to when that market comes back, I think it’s anybody’s guess.”

He points to a price gap between resale homes and new homes that needs to shrink. The market for new condos will pick up when prices rise for resale homes or fall for new condos, which will only happen if development costs fall, he said.

“It’s very challenging as a developer right now to sit here, hold land, try and get it approved, carry the cost of that land, and hope for a better day,” he said.

[ac3r]

He's basically saying that:

1) He is confident it won't get approved but additionally that he'll have to escalate things to the OLT first if he senses they won't approve it (they won't, it'll go to the OLT),
3) That a dragged out fight with the OLT is costly,
4) That he may have to have the project redesigned to appease NIMBYs, which will be costly to have architects and engineers redo it,
5) That he'll have to continue paying taxes etc to own a piece of vacant land that the city or community won't let him do anything with,
6) That he made a lot of bad, speculative decisions and is in way over his head,
7) The City of Waterloo is full of idiots.

Your average day in Waterloo Region development.

And why anyone would ever try to propose a project like this - really, anything with a tower/density - in Waterloo still perplexes me. He should have proposed a nuclear waste disposal facility. That would have probably had a better chance. Or another ugly 18 floor slab building, but those don't have enough units to pay the bills anymore.

[Momo26]

Community pushing back on slated Uptown Waterloo towers https://share.google/j3yrFGrsNbyIvZilw

[nms]

A single family home is being replaced by a 6 storey apartment building at 70A Short St in Waterloo (just the other side of the Caroline St S parking lot from the Willis Way LRT stop).  Given the amount of equipment on site, I had wondered if it was something more significant or technically challenging.

[nms]

A single family home is being replaced by a 6 storey apartment building at 70A Short St in Waterloo (just the other side of the Caroline St S parking lot from the Willis Way LRT stop).  Given the amount of equipment on site, I had wondered if it was something more significant or technically challenging.

This project now has a name: Amber & Oak. 45 Rental suites at 70 Short St, Waterloo.  Brought to you by Spurline Developments.  Units range from 338 sq t (Studio) to 794 sq ft (1 Bedroom + den)

[KingandWeber]

A single family home is being replaced by a 6 storey apartment building at 70A Short St in Waterloo (just the other side of the Caroline St S parking lot from the Willis Way LRT stop).  Given the amount of equipment on site, I had wondered if it was something more significant or technically challenging.

This project now has a name: Amber & Oak. 45 Rental suites at 70 Short St, Waterloo.  Brought to you by Spurline Developments.  Units range from 338 sq t (Studio) to 794 sq ft (1 Bedroom + den)

Yikes those floor plans are tiny! To be fair they call them “purposefully crafted” in the brochure, but they omit saying the purpose is to maximize profit, not liveability.

[bravado]

This project now has a name: Amber & Oak. 45 Rental suites at 70 Short St, Waterloo.  Brought to you by Spurline Developments.  Units range from 338 sq t (Studio) to 794 sq ft (1 Bedroom + den)

Yikes those floor plans are tiny! To be fair they call them “purposefully crafted” in the brochure, but they omit saying the purpose is to maximize profit, not liveability.

When were developers altruistic?

[tomh009]

Yikes those floor plans are tiny! To be fair they call them “purposefully crafted” in the brochure, but they omit saying the purpose is to maximize profit, not liveability.

Yes, but ... you really can live in under 400 sqft, if it's laid out well. Even two people can be happy there (of course, each person has different needs so this is not for everyone). But modern 1BR layouts aren't super efficient. Here is an example of two 390 sqft apartments (in Europe), one from 10 years ago, the other one 66 years ago. The old one has lots of doors but is actually much more functional than the current example.

   

[danbrotherston]

Yikes those floor plans are tiny! To be fair they call them “purposefully crafted” in the brochure, but they omit saying the purpose is to maximize profit, not liveability.

Yes, but ... you really can live in under 400 sqft, if it's laid out well. Even two people can be happy there (of course, each person has different needs so this is not for everyone). But modern 1BR layouts aren't super efficient. Here is an example of two 390 sqft apartments (in Europe), one from 10 years ago, the other one 66 years ago. The old one has lots of doors but is actually much more functional than the current example.

Yeah, it really was remarkable to me how efficient homes here are with space. I have a ~1000 sq ft 3 bedroom home, but it feels larger than my 1700 sq ft 2 bedroom home in Canada which had a basement on top of that.

Now part of that is that it isn't bigger, and that is _sometimes_ annoying. We don't have a lot of storage space (a basement is hard to beat) and we do have a smaller house, but the Kitchen layout is much better, so it functions better despite being smaller, and the Living room is larger, but we have no dining room...but we used the dining room maybe 3 times in 4 years living there, so...better. And the main bedroom was HUGE in the house, and I had a seating arrangement there, that I used...well...never. So again, wasted space.

Now I'm not saying that a larger house wouldn't be more useful in some ways--I could use space for a second WFH office space--but given that the house is barely half the size, it's remarkable how close it is.