Glad to hear there's still progress despite the snow!:tup:

the site is now surounded in a brown hoarding and there is a piling machine on site

Drove past the site yesterday, and there was a pretty huge hole dug out.

Glad to see they got all (or at least most) of the site prep done before the ground froze. I remember last year the ground work wasn't done in time at Western's new Ivey business building. It really slowed down the pace of construction.

I drove past the other day, and I saw the crane moving around hard at work...

^drove past this afternoon. Appears as though the concrete bottom of the tub is done. The crane is about half the height of the neighboring phase 1. Probably will be jacked up higher when the tower gets up to 10 storeys or so. This is all great for King street commerce. Hope that it will transform that part of York (really crappy) and moreover, south Richmond (even crappier).

Lots of substance there now. Full court sales press. I love the top penthouse. Anyone here thinking of buying it? ;)

On a more serious side, the rate of sales with this project is key to determining the potential for future developments of a similar nature. It's an excellent canary.

Related to this, I had a lecture a few days ago from the man who initiated Kitchener's brownfield redevelopment strategy. He said it took him a lot of time and energy canvassing developers to find someone interested in developing condos in downtown Kitchener - most developers thought that condos would never fly in Kitchener-Waterloo since everyone wanted single-family homes. But once they found a developer willing to convert the Kaufmann Building downtown to condos, and once it became apparent that project had been successful, they got the ball rolling on a whole number of downtown projects (not just brownfields).

All it takes was for one developer to take a risk and show that something can turn a profit, and the rest will follow.

Kitchener is trying hard to make a go of the condo thing as so much of its downtown has old abandoned industrial sites. London has none. The business models are quite different as a result.

Bear in mind that to date there have been two condo developments in downtown Kitchener - both refurbished buildings that had a prior use. The first, the Kaufman factory re-development, while considered a success now, had terrible birthing pains: 6 or more years late, horrid industrial contamination, and buyers forced to live in hotels for 6 or 8 months because their units were not completed in time.

The second development- the re-development of the old Eaton's department store - was an unmitigated disaster. The building was not (and still isn't) complete, was denied occupancy permits because it was not built to code, and eventually the "developer" split town. The buyers were royally screwed left holding the bag.

A third development - the re-development of the old Arrow shirt factory by Andrin has been ongoing for 6 or 8 years and there seems to be no end in site. There never seems to be more than a handful of workers on site at any given time, although some progress is visible once again.

A fourth project is a new 17 story development. It has been stalled for over 7 years however. The developer now says that they will start building only after two-thirds of the units are pre-sold. This isn't expected until 2012 at the earliest.

So, in short, there has been one brownfield condo redevelopment in downtown Kitchener to date that could be said to be successful (and only then after great birthing pains). Subsequent "spin-off" condo projects have been less than successful to date however. That isn't to say that things won't improve, but for now the record is checkered.

A current brownfield redevelopment in downtown Kitchener that is looking to be quite successful is the re-development of the Lang Tannery factory, although that is offices not residential (at least for now).

Some photo updates for you guys. Nobody was working even though it was mid-day on a Wednesday. Either everybody was on lunch or because it was raining...

http://www.commutebyrail.org/stuff/ren1.jpg

http://www.commutebyrail.org/stuff/ren2.jpg

This is all the construction that I took on 13/04/2011

All photos are in the East Parking Lot facing West. There's not really much to see from any other direction.

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1302769038

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1302769514

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1302769037

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1302769037

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1302769032

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1302769035

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1302769034

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1302769033

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1302769511

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/z...g?t=1302769032

That's all for now! I will be posting more updates the more I get out.

:previous:It is coming along!!!!:cool:

Are developers allegric to glass in this city? :shrug:
The only glass towers I've seen in London is the Talbot Centre and One London Place which are amazing buildings.
You guys should get a glass condo, you're starting to look like Hamilton.

The Old East development is going to be mostly glass. Here's a render:

http://www.londontopic.ca/artimages/...evelopment.jpg

That doesn't look that bad.
Nice to see London getting some good proposals.

Drove by today and they have walls finnished on the ridout and york sorry no pics didnt have my camera.

Not a proposal. It's already 5 stories tall :)

Early days of rebirth’ of core area
 

People think nothing about shelling out big bucks for luxury condominium living in the core.


This might be just the beginning of the million-dollar condominium in London.

Within 24 hours of unveiling them, Tricar Group sold two million-dollar condominiums that will sit atop the second downtown Renaissance tower. The developer is now looking at sites for yet another tower in the downtown.

"We were shocked," Joe Carapella, president of Tricar Group, said of the quick sale. "We wondered whether London was ready but these are firm deals and we could have sold others if we had them."

Tricar has pre-sold 30 condominiums in its new, 188-unit building and 16 of those are penthouses. There are 21 penthouses in the building that won't open until mid-2013.

"When people are prepared to spend that kind of money in housing, they could live anywhere, but that tells you downtown is very happening," Carapella said.

The two $1-million condo buyers were London and area residents, a professional and entrepreneur who preferred not to be named.

"We are absolutely looking for a place to build another tower. We think this is in its infancy - it is the early days of the rebirth of downtown London," Carapella said.

Jim Kennedy, president of the London Development Institute, agreed, saying "there is a lot of interest" among developers and builders considering the core, especially in light of the city and Fanshawe College planning to build a $20-million education campus in the core. And that's on the heels of the city spending $100 million on downtown development in recent years.

"People are looking downtown, they are waiting and seeing what is happening with the economy and the new city hall," and other development proposals, Kennedy said.

But London is part of a trend across Canada. More cities are seeing people return to their downtown, with empty nesters tiring of mowing the lawn, driving everywhere and the blandness of suburban life, said Jason Gilliland, director of the urban development program at the University of Western Ontario.

"This is happening not just in London, condos are going up like crazy everywhere. It is about a real demographic shift" as baby boomers age, he said.

--- --- ---

Downtown living

Tricar Group has buildings at 22 Picton St., 125 units; a condominium at Wellington and Pall Mall, 80 units; the first Renaissance tower has 277 units and the second will be 188 units. That's a total of 670 units with about two people living in each unit.

In addition, Drewlo, Auburn and Old Oak have all built new residences in the core.

More than 5,000 people live downtown and 16,000 in central London.
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This has made my day!

Agreed me too!! I do hope if/when Tricar finds another suitable site for downtown they change up the design a bit, I think a nice 30+ floor 100ft glass residential tower is the next step for down town London.

Maybe King/Clarence or Queens/Talbot area could fit the bill?

We have a thread for this: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=190081

:P

If we get some "Toronto Style" downtown condos, that would change everything!