General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours

[tomh009]

I'm not sure if it's realistic either.

But it's prime park realestate. I would still argue the land (at least some of it) has greater value to the public than it's mere dollar value.

I think many of us here are of the opinion that an expansion of Victoria Park or expansion/community centre is a great use of the land. I just doubt that the two councils have the foresight to do this over selling it off to the highest bidder.

Selling the land could involve a commitment to provide space to a community centre, but the current community centre is only a few hundred metres away.

But both parklands and community centres are a city responsibility, so the region is going to be unlikely to be getting into those activities.

[tomh009]

But it's prime park realestate. I would still argue the land (at least some of it) has greater value to the public than it's mere dollar value.

Yes, it is. But the park could surely be expanded in the other direction for far less than $50M -- for example, by purchasing 168 West Ave and 152 Homewood Ave, which add up to almost 3.8 acres on the SW edge of Victoria Park. That would increase the park's size by about 10%.

And then there is the four-acre K-W Hydro property across West Ave, which is mostly parking lot ...

[taylortbb]

But both parklands and community centres are a city responsibility, so the region is going to be unlikely to be getting into those activities.

I'd like to know how much the region paid the city for the GRT terminal back in 2002 when transit was transferred though. I have a suspicion that as a part of uploading GRT all GRT assets (the buses, the terminals, etc) may have been sold to the region for $1 or something. If that was case, I think there's a reasonable point to be made that the property was only transferred for the purposes of running GRT, and the region transferring it back to the city would be reasonable. I haven't been able to find the actual answer though, it was long enough ago to not be readily searchable, but other transfers between the city and region have been for nominal amounts of money.

[KaiserWilhelmsBust]

In8's 88 Queen Street - 44 storeys & 567 units

https://pub-kitchener.escribemeetings.co...entId=3725

[Zoo]

In8's 88 Queen Street - 44 storeys & 567 units

https://pub-kitchener.escribemeetings.co...entId=3725

Interesting.  Thanks for sharing.

[Bytor]

In8's 88 Queen Street - 44 storeys & 567 units

https://pub-kitchener.escribemeetings.co...entId=3725

Queen St North or South?

[ac3r]

South. It's the block that's just across the street from Queen Station.

[tomh009]

In8's 88 Queen Street - 44 storeys & 567 units

https://pub-kitchener.escribemeetings.co...entId=3725

Queen St North or South?

Queen St S

[ac3r]

Looks like either all or part of the CTV offices are being sold as development property. Does anyone know if they're planning on moving?

[Rainrider22]

It would be cool to see them move more DTK with front glass like studio... add an extra bit of coolness...

[westwardloo]

It would be cool to see them move more DTK with front glass like studio...  add an extra bit of coolness...

They are probably planning on shutting down operations at the region all together and move everything to Toronto. Unfortunately that has been the case with almost all of our local media. It is too bad, even 570 news a shell of what it used to be.

[ijmorlan]

It would be cool to see them move more DTK with front glass like studio...  add an extra bit of coolness...

They are probably planning on shutting down operations at the region all together and move everything to Toronto. Unfortunately that has been the case with almost all of our local media. It is too bad, even 570 news a shell of what it used to be.

It would be interesting to know what would happen if some of these were still independent. I mean it’s a natural thing for CTV to centralize and standardize everything; but if CKCO were still a separate business, that wouldn’t be an option (short of selling out, obviously, which actually happened decades ago). Of course, maybe the answer would be that a standalone TV station isn’t a viable business in today’s economic environment.

[TMKM94]

According to Bob Tiffin on the Remembering CKCO facebook page, they are moving the studio and Radio stations (Bounce 99.5 and Virgin 105.3) to this building.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/gKusGC31VmQ46DML8

[westwardloo]

They are probably planning on shutting down operations at the region all together and move everything to Toronto. Unfortunately that has been the case with almost all of our local media. It is too bad, even 570 news a shell of what it used to be.

It would be interesting to know what would happen if some of these were still independent. I mean it’s a natural thing for CTV to centralize and standardize everything; but if CKCO were still a separate business, that wouldn’t be an option (short of selling out, obviously, which actually happened decades ago). Of course, maybe the answer would be that a standalone TV station isn’t a viable business in today’s economic environment.

Somehow Hamilton was able to keep a local channel in CHCH. The centralization of media is one of the most disappointing things in todays world. All of our news agencies are owned and for the most part produced from toronto, which means none of them have a real vestide interest in spending money to provide meaningful stories that affect our community. its just watered down toronto news.

[tomh009]

According to Bob Tiffin on the Remembering CKCO facebook page, they are moving the studio and Radio stations (Bounce 99.5 and Virgin 105.3) to this building.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/gKusGC31VmQ46DML8

That makes sense. Radio can be easily done from anywhere, but doing TV/video remotely would be considerably more challenging.