1451 Wellington St W | 39m | 12f | U/C

[waterloowarrior]

Some info on a potential project at the Proshine site Wellington@Island Park.

This is another Hobin-designed project, but not the same as The Wellington at Island Park (TWAIP is on the east side of Bella's restaurant, this project is on the west side)

http://blog.westwellington.ca/wp-con...NovMinutes.pdf

3) Presentation by David Spillenaar of Springcress Properties and architect Barry Hobin regarding potential development of the northeast corner of Wellington and Island Park (current location of Pro Shine). The proposed building is just to the west of Bella’s Restaurant. The lot on the east side of Bella’s is already approved for a development which Barry Hoban is also designing. Mr. Hoban presented preliminary drawings for the massing of the proposed project. He made the following points:
a. Two potential general designs are being considered
i. A six-floor version that comes closer to the rear property line
ii. A seven-floor version that leaves more room at rear between back of building and property line.
b. Both designs include “step-backs” at several levels of the building
c. This is a “Boutique” development meaning that there is not a lot of room for many units, a maximum of 40 to maintain 1:1 parking ratio.
d. The location is designated as a “Gateway” in CDP which allows it to go to 20 metres (6-7 stories)
e. The project is very much in the early stages. They are only looking at massing for the moment and seeking feedback from the community. The corner of the building is the only architectural element at this point. It creates a sort of gateway into Wellington Village.
f. The architect and the developer acknowledged that this will be a long process and that there will be opposition particularly from the residents directly to the north of the site.
g. The six-floor option would sit 25 metres from the property line, which is within the by-laws.
h. Both versions of the design have the same density of units. Because of the size of the lot there is very little play in that regard.
i. The development would include one level of underground parking and parking at grade
j. Both designs are smaller than the Piccadilly across the street.
k. Sun shadow is no different between two options
l. A big issue to be resolved will be off of which street access to the building will be established.
m. Maps of the area are available on-line from Bing Maps
n. As with all other recent developments in the area the proposal will include commercial space at ground level and residential units above.
o. When asked about LEED and other green features the developer replied that they haven’t gotten past the massing stage at this point. The architect mentioned that most of their developments are “green”.
p. At this point only the seven-floor option requires any variances and this only for height. The west side might need a variance because it goes right up to what is designated as a street though that street isn’t actually there as it dead-ends before the site.
q. They will not be looking for cash in lieu of parking at this point as the marketplace will demand adequate parking anyway.
r. The architect and the developer don’t believe retail will cause parking problems because there won’t be very much of it.
s. Units will not rentals but condos and won’t be particularly small or inexpensive.
t. Architect repeated that at this point they are just looking for honest feedback. They are trying to create a good process by putting their cards on the table which benefits them in the long run.
u. They can be reached through their website. http://www.hobinarc.com/index2.html
v. Jason also has David Spilenaar’s email address

Originally Posted by m3i6

1451 Wellington




Hopefully they'll have good coffee at this one.

http://childfree.files.wordpress.com...ec-15-2009.pdf (scan of the above meeting notice by http://childfree.wordpress.com

[waterloowarrior]

Spacing Ottawa will have a multi-part series on this development by some neighbouring environmentalists ("Urbanist's diary: When mainstreet comes to our backyard").
http://spacingottawa.ca/2009/12/07/u...-our-backyard/

[Ottawan]

Having read that first entry, it really should be an interesting story to follow. Self-proclaimed urbanists neighbouring a development that is "trying to create a good process by putting all of their cards on the table". I really hope it works out well.

[k2p]

I'm not holding my breath for much interesting on that blog after reading the first post. More traffic? They live next to a car wash for pete's sake.

Good on them for being open to intensification. And good on the developer for engaging so far. But why assume the new residents in an urban neighbourhood won't be as pedestrian and transit friendly as the current ones?

[RTWAP]

Originally Posted by k2p

I'm not holding my breath for much interesting on that blog after reading the first post. More traffic? They live next to a car wash for pete's sake.

Good on them for being open to intensification. And good on the developer for engaging so far. But why assume the new residents in an urban neighbourhood won't be as pedestrian and transit friendly as the current ones?

I thought the point about traffic was that the new building would only have vehicle access from their quite little side-street. If you bought on a quite dead-end street and they're adding over a hundred residents next door then that's a significant change.

I wish there was some organized way to handle these proposals in a financial way. For example, the new building height might be within the city plan and was foreseeable and therefore wouldn't trigger compensation to the neighbours, but tripling the traffic on their quite little street might not be and would result in a payment to the owners to compensate for lost property value.

The idea being that if they want to move to another location that is quiet then they wouldn't be facing a significant loss in value due to that unforeseeable negative impact on their property value.

[waterloowarrior]

meeting on this development is tonight
also, pt. 2 of the spacing series

[waterloowarrior]

pt. 3 spacing series

[waterloowarrior]

pt. 4

The development dance began in earnest this week. The developer filed an application for variance earlier in the week and this afternoon a group of concerned neighbourhood residents met for the first time to plan their strategy.

We haven’t seen the application yet but we believe it seeks at least two variances: allowing seven rather than six stories and allowing a smaller set-back off of Rockhurst Avenue, which would make the building both taller and wider than would otherwise be allowed. The Committee of Adjustment will decide whether the developer is granted these variances, at a hearing that will probably be in February.

[waterloowarrior]

pt. 5

The Developer also made a formal application for variance for the building. He is seeking three variances (italics added for explanation):

• To increase the building height limit from 18m to 22m above average grade (from 6 stories maximum to 7 stories maximum;

• To reduce the required front yard set-back from 2m, above 15m in height, to 0.5m (reducing the depth of the ’step-back’ designed to reduce the ‘canyon effect’ of large buildings);

• To reduce the required corner side yard set-back from 3m to a height of 15m and 5 m above, to 0m (no setback from property line on the west side).

[waterloowarrior]

pt. 6 re: vehicle access

[waterloowarrior]

Pt. 7 .... Project has been cancelled!!

[ajldub]

Too bad, it would have been nice to see this lot go up. Had somebody assembled the block they could have conceivably moved Bella's house to the corner and had enough property left over to make a financially viable project. It may be some time before another developer takes a run at this property.

[Ottawan]

Originally Posted by ajldub

Too bad, it would have been nice to see this lot go up. Had somebody assembled the block they could have conceivably moved Bella's house to the corner and had enough property left over to make a financially viable project. It may be some time before another developer takes a run at this property.

It might be some time, but there's no doubt that it will happen once the pickings are just a bit slimmer along Wellington/Richmond.

[McC]

New proposal for the ProShine lot, to be presented at a public meeting next week:
http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=...&id=b6ac3c2f54

You are invited to a meeting to discuss a proposal for construction of a mixed-use building at the northeast corner of Island Park Drive of 6 and 9 storeys by Mizrahi developments.

This site is part of the Wellington West CDP [PDF]. Details of the Plan's proposed "gateway architecture" at this corner are described on pages 61 and 62.

Where: Fisher Park Public School, Room 112
When: Tuesday, April 9th, 7:00 PM

Present will be representatives of the developer, the architect and planning consultant.

Hope to see you there,

Katherine

[kevinbottawa]

I like what Mizrahi is doing in Yorkville:





I look forward to seeing what they'll bring to Wellington West/Westboro. They seem to only build quality stuff.

On a side note, what ever happened to this proposal down the street?

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=179182

[OTSkyline]

Pardon my language but that is one f*cking nice building!
I used to think I could never love a short/medium building, only towers, but this has proven me wrong. So nice, hopefully they can build something like it in Ottawa.
It's very much the same style as The Merit.

[kevinbottawa]

Eric Darwin has a post about the meeting between the developer.

http://www.westsideaction.com/news-h...listens-first/

He says Mizrahi bought both the Joe’s Audio and Bella Restaurant sites and that Bella will be the tenant at the new building. They'll ask for 12 and 9 storeys because of higher than expected soil remediation costs and they'll be using the same architect that worked on QWest and the other nearby Ashcroft projects.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by kevinbottawa

Eric Darwin has a post about the meeting between the developer.

http://www.westsideaction.com/news-h...listens-first/

He says Mizrahi bought both the Joe’s Audio and Bella Restaurant sites and that Bella will be the tenant at the new building. They'll ask for 12 and 9 storeys because of higher than expected soil remediation costs and they'll be using the same architect that worked on QWest and the other nearby Ashcroft projects.

I read the post and it seems too good to be true. It would be exorbitantly expensive to follow thru everything they claim they will do. No doubt they will sell there condos at exorbitant prices to compensate, but there lies the other problem; Ottawa has a history of having trouble selling ultra expensive condos, look at the last three, 700 Sussex, 90 George and the Re.

Furthermore, in this case (as opposed to the three previously mentioned projects), I'm not sure Ottawans understand the value in a developer that goes all out to keep the community happy while offering super high quality custom homes in condo style (a first in OT as far as I know.

That being said, I'm impressed with their previous work, and hopefully they will be successful in this new experiment for Ottawa.

PS, the fact that they hired the same architect as Ashcroft (Lahey?) scares the hell out of me!

[Ottawan]

Originally Posted by kevinbottawa

Eric Darwin has a post about the meeting between the developer.

http://www.westsideaction.com/news-h...listens-first/

He says Mizrahi bought both the Joe’s Audio and Bella Restaurant sites and that Bella will be the tenant at the new building. They'll ask for 12 and 9 storeys because of higher than expected soil remediation costs and they'll be using the same architect that worked on QWest and the other nearby Ashcroft projects.

Don't get me wrong - I'm happy about this development - but talk about hypocritical of Bellas after what they put their neighbours through during construction of The Wellington.

[Luker]

Originally Posted by Ottawan

Don't get me wrong - I'm happy about this development - but talk about hypocritical of Bellas after what they put their neighbours through during construction of The Wellington.

This was my exact thought as well.. I was just telling a friend that story a few weeks ago while passing by.