Good Shepherd Square | ? | 8 fl | Under Construction
Good Shepherd Square
$55 Million value - Hamilton, Ontario
An urban infill site in a residential neighbourhood, close to Hamilton's downtown, Good Shepherd Square creates a unique campus of four buildings designed around a stand of mature trees, framing a new public parkette. Public walkways cross the site and lead to a piazza at the north end.
The complex consists of four buildings: a 55,000 sq ft Women's Services facility with transitional housing around an enclosed garden courtyard. One apartment building contains seniors apartments over a main floor Wellness Centre. The other apartment building contains family apartments over a large main floor of program and activity space. These buildings have been designed for a small footprint, with a brick podium that helps ensure a contextual fit. A small three-storey family apartment building transitions the development into the adjacent community.
Plans are complete. Invited tender for the General Contractor anticipated late Winter 2008. Sub Trade tenders will depend on the General Contractor selected. Construction anticipated early Spring 2009. Further update March 2009.
wow those are beautiful...... looks so not hamilton. I think I'm in a different city. 3.5 years of discussion and they come up with this amazing development on prime land.
wtf designed this? Trevor Garwood-Jones? Was an architect actually used? I thought I was looking at a new Barton Street Jail minus the chain link fence.
__________________
Height restrictions and Set-backs are for Nimbys and the suburbs.
^ NIMBY did delay this project for nearly 5 years.
The woman shelter is already under construction, you won't see it from King St. The buildings facing King St (8 storey) starts Spring 2009. It has two storey commercial all along King St. The architect is the same who designed Education Square, Thier + Curran Architects Inc.
Well, I understand that - I guess my question is a rhetorical "why would they design a streetwall with a huge gap along King St instead of putting the gap somewhere else?"
This project has been delayed for years because the neighbourhood didn't like the idea of losing a park, plus it's a shelter as well. To appease the neighbourhood they built in a park and trails.
The only problem with retail along King is that there is already a ton of under- and un- used retail along King (and other streets). As an example, I wonder if they will ever fill the retail space at the Gore Building or Terraces on King? They haven't been able to fill 2 out of 5 retail spaces in the West Village Condos on Main West either.
__________________ RECENT PHOTOS: TORONTO • SAN FRANCISCO • ROCHESTER, NY • HAMILTON • GODERICH, ON • WHEATLEY, ON • COBOURG, ON • LAS VEGAS • LOS ANGELES
They haven't been able to fill 2 out of 5 retail spaces in the West Village Condos on Main West either.
There's no street parking and the shops are separated from the street by a bier. It's very uninviting to passersby and sends the clear message that those businesses are for the building residents only, and students just aren't the cash cow that everyone thinks they are. Too bad. Another missed opportunity to integrate students with the city.
^^ a bit belated on the retail side, but it's frustrating from that standpoint because on the north side especially, the businesses between Locke and Pearl are separated so much from either Dundurn or Queen.
I hope some retail ends up in this project.. with a few businesses around Ray Street (flooring, laundromat) it would have been nice if this project functioned to create a solid wall of businesses from Locke almost all the way to Queen. I also think it would help the BIA talks that have been "in progress" about extending the King West BIA/creating a new one for the stretch up to Locke for a couple years now. If there's no retail, businesses will further become islands among stretches of highway.
I know in the area I work, many of the businesses have been there for decades and rely on customer loyalty (Gilbert's, 55 yrs, La Moda, 35+ years, Tony's Barber shop, 40+ years) but the newer businesses are either ones that function without needing walkby retail (eg MJM Productions) or have a significant portion of their business occur outside of their retail store (e.g. Woodland Creations - most of his businesses is craft fairs/events, not retail). No one is basing their businesses there on walk-by clientele.
This isn't really going to help - nor will businesses that typically have higher-end clients (e.g. Hess Financial) see any benefit from this project because there's no overlap between their customers and those who will use this facility.