Benton/Church project | 40 fl | Proposed

[Lebronj23]

If there are no updates posted by the members here in these threads there is no movement on the development. Projects like this are not even going into sales nor are they anytime soon

[Square]

Also there are still tenants in all 3 buildings. If they are going to start anytime soon, the buildings would be empty.

[ac3r]

Did this start? I was by the courthouse today and saw a crane in the direction of this area. I couldn't tell if it was for this or something else.

[ZEBuilder]

Did this start? I was by the courthouse today and saw a crane in the direction of this area. I couldn't tell if it was for this or something else.

It's for the 45 Courtland project by Cantiro (developer from Alberta who's also built 900 King W). The cranes been up there for a month or two now.

[ac3r]

Ah that one. Makes sense, the crane wasn't too tall.

[Square]

Ah that one. Makes sense, the crane wasn't too tall.

Still have tenants in all 3 buildings, don't see this one starting any time soon.

[ac3r]

Very likely, I feel for every 1 project that gets started, 3 sit in limbo for years and go absolutely nowhere.

[nms]

Very likely, I feel for every 1 project that gets started, 3 sit in limbo for years and go absolutely nowhere.

How does this compare with historic trends? I remember reading a book in the past that talked about a selection of the plans in Toronto that didn't happen in the last century or more.

[ZEBuilder]

Very likely, I feel for every 1 project that gets started, 3 sit in limbo for years and go absolutely nowhere.

How does this compare with historic trends?  I remember reading a book in the past that talked about a selection of the plans in Toronto that didn't happen in the last century or more.

Ever since companies and individuals started to get involved with upzoning and then flipping there has certainly been a marked increase because anyone with a little capital can get involved and it becomes rather lucrative. You do have some developers that are notorious for doing just that, for example Kingsett does this a lot with projects, the "developer" behind the Victoria/St Leger project is another one. You could even call the Elevate condos project in this category because it was someone getting involved because its lucrative with no real idea as to what they're doing.

Other developers will sit on it for years but can and will pull the trigger at some point, so it seems as if it's stalled but they're playing the long game. Take for example VanMar, they have half a dozen buildings in the pipeline, will they all be built, no one can actually say, but they aren't in the zone and flip business so odds are those projects will be built at some point. It may take 15 years but they'll still be built, so for now sure it's smoke but it takes a while for things to come to fruition when it's a developer in it for the long run. You could even take half of the large scale developments Activa is thinking of (1198 Fischer Hallman, 1340 Fischer Hallman, Harvest Park, more that aren't public). They have enough land that if they wanted to they could leverage that capital and build a tower on spec if they really wanted to, so it all depends.

Then you have projects that came to light such as Erb/Westmount, that obviously was a large project that then stalled because of covid, however there has been activity happening behind the scenes on that one. Again things take time to come to fruition and it really depends on the developer.

This one in particular is likely to happen, again will just take time.

[ac3r]

It may take 15 years but they'll still be built, so for now sure it's smoke but it takes a while for things to come to fruition when it's a developer in it for the long run.

I find this particularly frustrating. For a bit under 14 million, I could buy those two existing historic residential buildings at 46 College. I could also buy 44 Weber for a little over 3 million, not to mention lots of other properties/parcels downtown. I could pull some strings, kick everyone out, tear the buildings down and then let the property fill up with trash and invasive weeds for 35+ years or as long as I wanted. I could even propose a project, but then secretly never actually commit to doing it for as long as I lived. There'd be almost nothing anyone could do to make me do something useful with the land I bought.

But obviously that is a huge waste. If there was a way to only authorize the sale of property in urban cores (edit: I should add, or approve developments), within transit station catchment areas or other places that can objectively be deemed as suitable for necessary development if there was an "immediate" plan to develop it after purchase, then that could be helpful. But I don't really know how well we could legislate etc any rules that would push property buyers or developers into actually developing what could be deemed as "high value" properties. Then you'd introduce issues of whether or not it's a good thing to actually grant a government control over that when citizens (or developers) should be free to buy land as they wish.

[Momo26]

Do we *need* another massive condo building?

I think we must rethink it...at least the dog crate condo.

Should be a requirement to be 650sqft 1bd, and min 800sqft 2bed with a third of the building 3beds 1000sqft and proper family focus

[bravado]

Do we *need* another massive condo building?

I think we must rethink it...at least the dog crate condo.

Should be a requirement to be 650sqft 1bd, and min 800sqft 2bed with a third of the building 3beds 1000sqft and proper family focus

What if we let the market decide and people who want a "dog crate" can buy it with their own money and live in it? There's something so condescending about how some people talk about housing that they don't personally like.

[ac3r]

I suspect the point was that because condo sales have slowed down, it makes no sense to keep building them at the moment. But unfortunately there's no way we can make developers focus on apartments and other multi-unit, family oriented projects.

[plam]

There's a segment of the Internet that will talk about Land Value Tax at quite some length.

[Kodra24]

Do we *need* another massive condo building?

I think we must rethink it...at least the dog crate condo.

Should be a requirement to be 650sqft 1bd, and min 800sqft 2bed with a third of the building 3beds 1000sqft and proper family focus

What if we let the market decide and people who want a "dog crate" can buy it with their own money and live in it? There's something so condescending about how some people talk about housing that they don't personally like.

Wow you've come a long way! "Let the market decide" is great and I'm all for it however I'm certainly not for bailing out private business with tax dollars, be it whichever industry

I am hearing rumblings from developers wanting to get a bailout package