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Station Park | 18, 28, 36, 40, 50 fl | U/C
(08-22-2022, 11:27 AM)taylortbb Wrote:
(08-21-2022, 07:50 PM)tomh009 Wrote: My point, really, is that planning a condo building with space suitable for a grocery store and putting such a store in renders is well short of having a store actually sign a lease (or purchase a commercial unit) and open a store in such a space. We've gone through this half a dozen or more times in these forums as now projects have been proposed and built, and the only grocery stores to open have been (the now former) J&P and Marche Leo's. And BT has a sign up for their new space so they do appear to be committed.

The Station Park plans are a little different though. There's been generic retail spaces with a "wouldn't a grocery store be nice" , and then there's Station Park where building 5 is designed specifically for a grocery store. Extra elevators, multiple escalators, etc. They're not going to build such a purpose-designed space speculatively, they'll only do that with a signed agreement.

Not to say that they already have a signed agreement, the drawings may be speculative while they try to find an operator that's interested. But I think the plans are significantly more advanced than they ever have been elsewhere. I never saw full drawings of such a massive purpose-built space submitted to the city for the other speculative grocery stores in DTK.

Yes, maybe they will be successful this time, let's hope so. But making a beautiful space is still no guarantee of being able to sign a specific tenant -- it takes two to tango.
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The crane for the 28 Floor building was disassembled on Thursday. Has anyone heard when the Plaza will be demolished?
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The demo permit is still in application stage. I think they have 30 days to issue them. So after that it could be anytime, I would think within the next two months
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Vanmar has posted some nice pics of the crane coming down on their IG

It's looking good!
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(08-27-2022, 01:41 PM)TMKM94 Wrote: The crane for the 28 Floor building was disassembled on Thursday. Has anyone heard when the Plaza will be demolished?

I noticed when I drove by the other day, you can no longer access the plaza from the road as a pedestrian. So we're likely getting close.
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I received an email to register it looks like DUO phase 2 is starting sales Nov 2nd
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Here’s a fairly dramatic video for Duo launching November 2nd:
https://youtu.be/D6TamA_CJZg
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Lol what the hell? I can't wait to see the next 7 videos.
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I love how they so blatantly & almost exclusively market the condos in KW to GTA investors. If I didn't live here and was not familiar with what DTK looked like, I might have assumed from that video he was arriving by helicopter into a city called Station Park. There's some cool economic statistics in there but it's interesting they don't even mention the name of the city their condo is in once!
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Yeah, it's kind of insulting. Rich yt guy in a suit takes his private helicopter from Toronto to some unnamed city outside of Toronto that has economic potential. Buys a condo unit to flip and make even more cash. Nothing about the city/region, nothing about the area, nothing about shops/amenities/entertainment, nothing about how it'd be a good place to live or raise a family. At best they talk about the train station (which isn't even built and probably won't be open for a decade or more) and all the wealthy tech companies...but those details only really play into the whole wealthy investor from a big city thing.

This isn't surprising, though. Condo projects like this are geared to investors and a few people crazy enough to live in them by choice. These are more products than homes you settle down in for any period of time. The developers, investors and companies like Condo Culture aren't interested in building real communities, they're just making money.
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If they’re going to flip expensive abstract tokens, at least these ones will still have value as places to live if the bottom falls out of the market.
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(09-22-2022, 07:29 PM)ac3r Wrote: The developers, investors and companies like Condo Culture aren't interested in building real communities, they're just making money.

And then there is wonder when the residents who live in the community are leery about yet another tower going up with housing stock that doesn't suit local needs, won't necessarily be owned by locals, but locals will have to live in them anyways because that's all that's available because Councils don't have the power to push for real communities.
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How could they ever have that power
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(09-22-2022, 07:29 PM)ac3r Wrote: This isn't surprising, though. Condo projects like this are geared to investors and a few people crazy enough to live in them by choice.

Does anyone have actual data on what percentage of units are owner-occupied in recent projects such as Charlie West, City Centre/Young Condos and Garment St?

Kaufman has a vast majority of rentals but is that the norm or an outlier?
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To be blunt, I resent the position that renters cannot form part of a "real community" and condo owner-occupants are "crazy".

The "local need" is for more housing stock, and many of these developments provide dense new housing near transit, which is aligned with many policy goals. Do I wish homes were marketed more as places to live and less as speculative vehicles? Absolutely. That doesn't diminish the value they have in providing real homes for real people.
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