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Posted Jul 20, 2011, 2:38 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Jun 2011
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Really could have put this article in any number of threads as it talks about a couple projects.
Quote:
Waterloo’s building block
By Josh Brown, Record staff, Sat Jul 16 2011
WATERLOO — The buzzing sound of an electric saw can be heard blocks away.
Clouds of dust carry down the street, forcing pedestrians to hold hands over their mouths.
Cars sit bumper to bumper as trucks temporarily block traffic.
It has been a rough time for anyone passing along Erb Street West between Father David Bauer Drive and Caroline Street North recently.
Years of construction have wreaked havoc in uptown Waterloo.
But there is good news. All the patience is about to pay off as three of the four major projects near completion.
And when it’s all done, the former factory laden corridor will be transformed into one of the busiest and most interesting areas in Waterloo Region.
It will feature:
• The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) campus, which includes the Balsillie School of International Affairs, space for a proposed masters program in international law and other research institutions
• The BarrelYards, a $350-million residential/commercial project featuring a hotel, condos, apartments, office space and retail shops
• A 55,000-square-foot expansion at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics for the Stephen Hawking Centre
• The new $7.4-million Knox Presbyterian Church
And that’s on top of the Waterloo Memorial Recreation Complex, the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery and restaurants and shops that already fill the area.
“That corner holds so many important ideologies that we all embrace,” said Waterloo Mayor Brenda Halloran. “It’s a corner of faith, art and global peace initiatives.”
It has been a long time coming for the former blue-collar area that housed landmarks such as the Seagram Distillery, Canbar barrel yard, SunarHauserman plant and the Labatt brewery.
Waterloo has been biding its time in the area. In 1997, the city took some flak for buying the Seagram property for $3.9 million. Since then, it has leased the land at low prices to help lure some of the development that is there today.
“I’m grateful that prior councils waited,” said Halloran. “It had to be the right thing. It’s time to enjoy it.”
An army of construction workers in brightly coloured hard hats are working feverishly to keep pace for the mid-September grand opening of the CIGI campus at the corner of Erb Street West and Father David Bauer Drive.
Inside, skilled labourers are in the final stages of construction of the $66-million complex, which received $25 million in funding from the federal and provincial government. Waterloo also donated land worth $5 million in a 99-year lease.
“There is a full-court press on now to get it ready for the fall,” said Fred Kuntz, CIGI’s vice-president of public affairs.
Stone from Muskoka was recently installed in the new 250-seat auditorium, which will serve as a home for public lectures. Dr. James Orbinski, a Canadian physician who accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Medecins Sans Frontieres in 1999, will be the first speaker Sept. 22.
His engagement is one of many events planned for the campus’s launch, which also includes a free public tour Sept. 17.
When complete, the three-storey project will house CIGI, the Basillie School of International Affairs and academic research space. There are also plans to add an international law program.
“What’s happening at the CIGI campus is almost unique in the world,” said Kuntz. “It doesn’t exist anywhere in Canada.”
Things are also moving along across the street at the Stephen Hawking Centre at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, which is holding grand opening celebrations Sept. 16-18.
The new 55,000 square foot wing, which is almost complete, will double the space and triple the capacity of the Caroline Street North complex.
The additional space will allow the facility to increase its staff to 250 trainees and researchers.
“We will easily be the largest theoretical physics institute in the world,” said Michael Duschenes, the institute’s chief operating officer.
Work on the $26-million addition started two years ago. The Stephen Teeple design features new research areas, space for the institute’s scholars international program for master’s students, and a blue sky thinking room, among other things.
“The whole building is designed around the concept that researchers do very quiet work on their own and then maximize opportunities to interact with each other,” said Duschenes.
Knox Presbyterian Church, on Erb Street West near Caroline Street North, resumed services in its new building in late May. The $7.4-million project took about two years to complete. Minor tweaks are still ongoing.
The new church sits on the parking lot of the former house of worship. The old church, which was deemed too small for the growing congregation of about 1,300, will be demolished.
“We have gone from a traditional church with a pulpit, lectern and choir stalls to a very open area at the front that is completely flexible,” said Rev. Brooke Ashfield.
The project was on budget and features 10-stained glass windows salvaged from the old location as well as a new top-of-the-line sound and projection system and air-conditioning, among other amenities.
“Like anybody who moves, even when you move into a nice place, it takes a while to settle in,” Ashfield said.
Knox Presbyterian will host a public tour Sept. 17 and an official opening later in the fall.
Meanwhile, progress is slow at the BarrelYards — a $350-million mixed development project on the corner of Erb Street West and Father David Bauer Drive.
Minor delays mean the nine-storey hotel pegged for the property won’t be open next month as advertised.
But construction is ongoing and plans, although behind, are still on for the hotel, apartments, condos and office and retail space, according to Ryan Mounsey, Waterloo project manager for the BarrelYards file.
Mounsey added that a portion of Father David Bauer Drive will also be upgraded in about a year.
London-based Auburn Developments Inc. has the contract to develop the land but did not return numerous phone calls. The project will take several years to complete.
“They’re trying to get the hotel done and then they are lining up very quickly the next stage,” said Mounsey.
jbrown@therecord.com
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