General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours

[Acitta]

I think the castle façade is about 15 years old (a Wikipedia image of the building is dated 2006).  Prior to that, it was more of an A-frame façade (if you traced the angle from the ground floor front windows, you get a general idea).

I am certain that it looked like that when I moved here 20 years ago.

[neonjoe]

They renovated the castle to look like that after the seasonal castle was no longer allow to set up at Benton and Charles (where the Garage is now). I think the building used to have the classic german looking stucco and wood design similar to the abandoned McDonalds on King.

[robdrimmie]

It appears that the Oktoberfest organization moved into 17 Benton street in 1989 [1], but I can't find a definitive answer about when the facade itself was created.

The name "Hans Haus" does not appear on the official website in February of 2000 [2] but does in May 2000 [3]. I tried a random collection of earlier incarnations of the site and didn't see the name elsewhere either, so it's possible it could have been done during that period. I don't have ready access to the Waterloo Region Record's print archives online and there are no search results there earlier than October, 2010.

[1] https://www.woodhouse.ca/news/tag/Deer-Ridge you will need to scroll down one article
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/200002291039...erfest.ca/
[3] https://web.archive.org/web/200005101150...erfest.ca/

[panamaniac]

1999, iinm.

[KevinL]

I don't recall exactly when they moved there, but their previous location was at Ontario and Charles (the current SportsLink). At one point the fire hydrant out front was painted like Onkel Hans.

[WLU]

I think the castle façade is about 15 years old (a Wikipedia image of the building is dated 2006).  Prior to that, it was more of an A-frame façade (if you traced the angle from the ground floor front windows, you get a general idea).

That's right.  It was an A-frame building back years ago when it was a ski shop.  I think the store was called Riordan's.

[tomh009]

That's right.  It was an A-frame building back years ago when it was a ski shop.  I think the store was called Riordan's.

Indeed it was!

[ac3r]

Spotted this this morning. I'm not sure if it has been posted here or not. Proposal for a 26 floor tower at 890-900 King Street West by MHBC. Retail on the first floor with residential units in the tower. The location is currently an old medical centre office and parking lot. Not much info on the City of Kitchener website yet: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience...3%2Cview_6

Direct link to image if you want to zoom into the render, though it's fairly low quality: https://i.imgur.com/H69DfRd.jpg

[panamaniac]

Boring, generic, not attractive, probably too tall for the location (although mid-town as mid-rise is dead anyway). Seems an easy approval...

[danbrotherston]

Boring, generic, not attractive, probably too tall for the location (although mid-town as mid-rise is dead anyway).  Seems an easy approval...

I'm getting rather tired of "boring, generic, not attractive, too tall" complaints.

Even if that were true, it's housing, and we need more housing, so just approve it.

But I don't think that's true. It seems cool these days to hate on new buildings, I find most of them reasonably attractive, and frankly I'm getting tired of people telling me what my city should look like.

And please don't take this as a personal call out panamaniac, I'm replying to you, but I've gotten this reply from many others in our community, and it's just beginning to grate on me. This has been most apparent with the 20 Queen St. where the majority of the complaints aren't "this building has historic value" but instead "I hate new buildings, they're ugly, the old building is pretty".

My *ONLY* complaint is that it has too much parking...and I'd argue that unlike modern architecture, traffic is objectively a bad thing for cities.

[ac3r]

I don't know about you but I'd like my city to actually look good. It's possible to have both more housing and nice buildings, otherwise you end up with a city looking like this when basically anything gets approved no matter how poorly designed it is:

You could plop this proposed building down right next to those and it would blend right in.

[ijmorlan]

I don't know about you but I'd like my city to actually look good. It's possible to have both more housing and nice buildings, otherwise you end up with a city looking like this when basically anything gets approved no matter how poorly designed it is:

[…]

You could plop this proposed building down right next to those and it would blend right in.

When I first glanced at the photo before reading your message and looking at it more carefully, I thought it was photoshopped to make midrise buildings into highrise by duplicating the middle floors!

[ac3r]

Hah, sadly not. This is what you end up with when you don't emphasize architectural creativity. We've got plenty of buildings like this here already, mostly in Waterloo. It's disgusting and I don't know how anyone could not advocate - if not demand - better design. These horrible buildings, for example, will out live each one of us (and are already falling apart in some places): https://www.google.com/maps/@43.4796133,...384!8i8192

[danbrotherston]

Hah, sadly not. This is what you end up with when you don't emphasize architectural creativity. We've got plenty of buildings like this here already, mostly in Waterloo. It's disgusting and I don't know how anyone could not advocate - if not demand - better design. These horrible buildings, for example, will out live each one of us (and are already falling apart in some places): https://www.google.com/maps/@43.4796133,...384!8i8192

Yeah, I really appreciate you calling my home disgusting and horrible.

That being said, your example is one of the plainest building in KW, few to no other buildings look that way and the proposed building certainly does not.

Of course, I would STILL advocate for housing, because I'd rather live in a home in that city than be homeless in what you feel is a nicer city.

[ac3r]

Hah, sadly not. This is what you end up with when you don't emphasize architectural creativity. We've got plenty of buildings like this here already, mostly in Waterloo. It's disgusting and I don't know how anyone could not advocate - if not demand - better design. These horrible buildings, for example, will out live each one of us (and are already falling apart in some places): https://www.google.com/maps/@43.4796133,...384!8i8192

Yeah, I really appreciate you calling my home disgusting and horrible.

That being said, your example is one of the plainest building in KW, few to no other buildings look that way and the proposed building certainly does not.

Of course, I would STILL advocate for housing, because I'd rather live in a home in that city than be homeless in what you feel is a nicer city.

Look, I get your point. All I am saying is that we live in a nation/society where we can (though arguably, we're not doing it ideally) both construct homes and make them look nice. If a building looks bad, why should it get approved? These buildings are going to be here for decades. Do you really want a city filled with ugly high rises everywhere you look? They tried that in Russia and ended up with Khrushchyovka. There is plenty of architectural and psychological research that has been done on how the "aesthetic beauty" (or lack there of) impacts the psychology of those people who live within them. This was one reason why public housing projects in North America generally turned into very undesirable, hostile places. The uglier your surroundings are, the more negative your experience will be. And often, it contributes to a faster decline in desirability.

Now, 890-900 King Street West is not social housing, nor are the student condos in Waterloo. But nonetheless, the uglier the building, the greater the negative impact is on those people who live there. We can have both ample housing and make it look good. This is just extremely lazy architecture. Cheap developers, hiring cheap architects, giving them a very limited budget which results in ugly buildings all so they can make...profit. The people who live there don't matter to them, they just see them as $ signs.

Frankly, I'd rather we develop Waterloo Region in a way where our living, working and shopping spaces are aesthetically pleasing and inviting rather than, well, ugly.