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Posted Oct 6, 2012, 3:01 PM
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Join Date: May 2010
Location: Toronto
Posts: 2,229
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Jumping back in ‘with all guns blazing’
Below is a story about Minto re-entering the Ottawa condo market. And here's a pic of the sports bar overlooking the stadium in the south tower at Lansdowne. (perhaps more of a party room?)
Quote:
Jumping back in ‘with all guns blazing’
After eight years away, Minto is set to launch two condo tower projects in a busy fall season
By Patrick Langston, The Ottawa Citizen October 4, 2012
It was just a matter of time.
The Minto Group, a pioneer condo developer in Ottawa and a longtime presence in Toronto’s booming highrise condo market, is starting to build towers here again after a lengthy gap. Its Minto@lansdowne project, a multi-faceted residential project that’s part of the massive Lansdowne Park redevelopment, includes two condo towers along with other residences. In Westboro, the company is partnering with Canderel to build UpperWest, a 25-storey tower. Both projects launch in the coming weeks.
Minto has kept its hand in the Ottawa condo market with low-rise projects such as Ampersand in Barrhaven over the past few years. However, it’s been eight years since its last highrise undertaking, the Metropole, a high-end, 33-storey structure in Westboro and still Ottawa’s tallest residential building.
Doesn’t that make the company a Johnny-come-lately on Ottawa’s well-entrenched highrise condo scene?
No, says Minto’s executive vice-president Paul Rookwood. “We (first) wanted to build up a solid approach to design, including green design. We’re now at the point where we’re ready to re-enter the Ottawa market. Our game plan is to come out with all guns blazing on primo sites.”
Rookwood adds that the City of Ottawa’s commitment to densification, the relative affordability of condos and the easy commute to work for those who live downtown all give the condo market the long-term viability Minto was waiting for before jumping back into it.
Adds Minto CEO Roger Greenberg, “For the longest time, the condominium market in Ottawa was quite slow, quite small and so there wasn’t really a lot of depth, a lot of opportunity for us.”
Ottawa’s increasing condo sales over the past several years convinced Minto that it was time to make its move. But “we said, ‘let’s be careful about launching, make sure we have a good product,’ ” says Rookwood.
He’s confident that, despite the recent slowdown in Ottawa’s overall real estate market, the company’s blend of quality buildings and excellent locations will ensure its successful re-entry.
Minto, recently named Builder of the Year at the Ontario Home Builders’ Association Awards of Distinction, will unveil more information about its two new condo projects at a VIP launch in October. A public launch follows in November. For more information, and to resister on the preview list, visit minto.com/buy-a-condo-in-ottawa/projects.html.
For now, Minto describes UpperWest on Richmond Road as a 20-storey tower atop a five-storey residential and parking podium. It will feature 199 one- and two-bedroom units, many with a den, starting in the mid-$200s.
Minto@lansdowne includes 239 units spread over a nine-storey tower and a second, 18-storey tower atop a two-storey residential podium. There will also be condo townhomes and terrace homes. Tower prices will range from the low $300s to over $1 million.
Both buildings will be targeting LEED gold certification in keeping with Minto’s commitment to sustainable design and building practices. (LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.)
Like most urban condos in Ottawa, the two projects are aimed at move-down and first-time buyers, young professionals and investors.
Minto, which says it has condo plans for a couple of other Ottawa properties, is re-entering an intensely competitive market (see the accompanying condo roundup for a taste of who else is building what and where).
This year, for example, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reports a record 2,089 condo starts to the end of August. All but seven of those units are condo apartments.
However, Patrick Meades, managing director of the real estate consulting firm PMA Brethour Realty Group, cautions that current starts don’t equate to current sales because developers typically delay starting construction until they’ve sold 60 per cent or more of their planned units. That can mean a delay of anywhere from six to 18 months between sales launches and the start of construction, he says.
Sales, says Meades, “are looking somewhat positive right now, though builders might do a teaser and then pull back (from a full launch).”
Both Ashcroft Homes (The Next) and Richcraft Homes (Edge) did that this summer, hosting VIP launches and then delaying public launches by two or more months.
There are, however, at least eight launches planned over the next couple of months.
We need a lot more condos, especially clustered around public transit hubs, if we want to solve problems like urban sprawl and the overuse of cars, according to David Gordon, who teaches in the Queen’s University urban and regional planning program.
“A cluster of condos within 500 metres of transit stations is the best practice in urban planning,” he says. He points to Toronto as a good example.
Gordon is less than impressed with the design of Ottawa condos. “All they know how to build are cereal boxes. The Metropole is kind of interesting, but most in Ottawa are basic.”
Neighbourhood opposition, meanwhile, has become almost an accepted fact when it comes to condo development. In Kanata’s Beaverbrook area, for example, the Morley Hoppner Group has modified its proposal for a condo at 2 The Parkway three times, initially proposing 16 storeys and, in its latest bid, 10 storeys.
And while Ottawa city planner Stanley Wilder says the condo scene is hopping, he points to a serious problem.
“Unfortunately, there’s a big hole because we’re not meeting the needs of families. We’re building for empty nesters, single individuals, investors, but for a young family that wants to give up its car and raise their kids downtown, you need more than just a studio (unit).”
In the suburbs, where singles and towns have traditionally been the order of the day, builders are adding some condos to their lineup. Phoenix Homes is launching Hillside Vista in Orléans this fall while both Campanale Homes and Cardel have low-rise condo projects on the go in Barrhaven and Orléans respectively.
The city’s densification policies mean we’ll see more suburban condos, says Greg Graham, president of Cardel Homes’ Ottawa operations.
As well, the federal government’s recent clawback on maximum mortgage amortizations from 30 to 25 years could force more first-time buyers anxious to live in the suburbs to consider condos rather than pricier townhomes or singles.
However, Graham says suburban condos will continue to be primarily low-rise because the province’s building codes restrict wood construction to four stories. Building six or seven stories in concrete pushes the unit price so high that condos quickly become uncompetitive compared to larger, and therefore more appealing, stacked townhomes.
The condo resale market continues to thrive, according to veteran real estate professional Marnie Bennett of Bennett Property Shop Realty. Although the Ottawa Real Estate Board’s figures for August show a 2.8-per-cent slippage in units sold year-to-date compared to last year, Bennett says that’s in part because units have jumped in price, so the number of units available below $175,000 has plummeted compared to previous years. That, she says, skews the statistics, and sales are up at nearly all other price points.
Bennett says the resale market increasingly consists of newer units with all the amenities. That makes condos built in the 1970s and ’80s tougher to sell. She advises anyone wanting to sell an older condo to do so quickly, before the competition from newer units becomes even fiercer.
With files from Anita Murray
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
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http://www.househunting.ca/ottawa/Mi...614/story.html
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