Downtown Update

[SteelTown]

Chamber leaving waterfront beachhead for downtown

http://www.thespec.com/news/business...d-for-downtown

The city’s main business group is returning to the heart of Hamilton business.

The Hamilton Chamber of Commerce is moving back downtown after more than 20 years on the waterfront at the foot of Bay Street.

The move was announced Monday at the business lobby’s 166th annual meeting.

“We moved down here because we wanted to help boost waterfront development and we have done that,” newly installed chair Louise Dompierre said. “We have helped with waterfront development and now it’s time to move back downtown.

“We want to be in the middle of things,” she added. “Now that waterfront development is well under way, that there’s momentum, we feel we should be downtown.”

Dompierre said a location for the new office has been chosen in the core but would not reveal the location because a lease hasn’t been signed yet.

[thistleclub]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

“We want to be in the middle of things,” she added. “Now that waterfront development is well under way, that there’s momentum, we feel we should be downtown.”

Dompierre said a location for the new office has been chosen in the core but would not reveal the location because a lease hasn’t been signed yet.

Beating a dead horse here, but it's a shame that Hamilton won't take a page from Burlington's playbook and try to replicate the synergies of 414 Locust St. They can still approximate it, by leasing the second-floor space at One James North and luring the Downtown BIA into the mix. I suspect that those big windows would have a way of making people confront the state of downtown.

[Pearlstreet]

http://www.thespec.com/news/business...-knitting-mill

Does anyone know of any happenings at the old Knitting Mill building located north of the downtown in Beasley of Hamiton? I would love to see this transform into lofts. It really is an interesting building. One portion looks to have been an old church at one point. It has seen alot of evolving purposes, it really tells a story.

[Pearlstreet]

Wow, I knew Bay Front was a good place to buy, but I just put in an offer last night on a place. I was one of NINE BIDDERS and was outbid. I'll try again next time...

[bigguy1231]

Originally Posted by Pearlstreet

Wow, I knew Bay Front was a good place to buy, but I just put in an offer last night on a place. I was one of NINE BIDDERS and was outbid. I'll try again next time...

That's funny, it took a buddy of mine 2 years to sell his place down there and it was priced to sell from the beginning. He just wanted to get rid of it because he got transferred out of town and wanted to sell fast. He only paid 60k for it 10 years ago and put another 30k into it to fix it up. It was a nice little place and he ended up almost giving it away because he couldn't find a buyer. So I can't see how any place down there would get nine bidders. We don't even get bidders in the most desirable areas of this city let alone the bayfront.

[Jon Dalton]

Originally Posted by bigguy1231

That's funny, it took a buddy of mine 2 years to sell his place down there and it was priced to sell from the beginning. He just wanted to get rid of it because he got transferred out of town and wanted to sell fast. He only paid 60k for it 10 years ago and put another 30k into it to fix it up. It was a nice little place and he ended up almost giving it away because he couldn't find a buyer. So I can't see how any place down there would get nine bidders. We don't even get bidders in the most desirable areas of this city let alone the bayfront.

It depends. My house was on the market for a long time before I made an offer, 6 months later a house around the corner went in 2 weeks. Similar size house, similar price. There is a lot of variation in the area we refer to as the bayfront.

[bigguy1231]

Originally Posted by Jon Dalton

It depends. My house was on the market for a long time before I made an offer, 6 months later a house around the corner went in 2 weeks. Similar size house, similar price. There is a lot of variation in the area we refer to as the bayfront.

I understand about the variation.

What I was questioning was the bidding. I have never heard of that happening in this city. It happens all the time in Toronto where the asking price is usually the minimum price and it goes up from there. Here people usually ask for more than they are expecting to get and take the offer closest to it.

[Jon Dalton]

The first house I bid on in the area had multiple bids and sold above asking. It was duplexed and had tenants, which may have been a factor.

[SteelTown]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

Chamber leaving waterfront beachhead for downtown

http://www.thespec.com/news/business...d-for-downtown

The city’s main business group is returning to the heart of Hamilton business.

The Hamilton Chamber of Commerce is moving back downtown after more than 20 years on the waterfront at the foot of Bay Street.

The move was announced Monday at the business lobby’s 166th annual meeting.

“We moved down here because we wanted to help boost waterfront development and we have done that,” newly installed chair Louise Dompierre said. “We have helped with waterfront development and now it’s time to move back downtown.

“We want to be in the middle of things,” she added. “Now that waterfront development is well under way, that there’s momentum, we feel we should be downtown.”

Dompierre said a location for the new office has been chosen in the core but would not reveal the location because a lease hasn’t been signed yet.

They are going to the main floor of the Standard Life building. Opening in June.

[Pearlstreet]

The house buying hunt downtown has been an adventure. It started with two bids on places closer downtown around Bay and Beasley areas. Due to getting involved in bidding wars I decided to cut loose and lost which left me disheartened. I looked onward to Stirton St., further east, north of King. I later found out the reason many homes on the street were for sale were due to a recent murder, well pubilcised by the Spec. Ignoring the potential of a cheap buy opportunity I think I was spooked, so I came back into the downtown where I managed to find a place on Victoria St. It seems to be a good bet and closer to downtown renewal, also no bidding war occured. The wave of renewal I feel seems to be creeping eastward a little bit through the downtown. Garbage bins and renovators are all over the area. I'm looking forward to repainting and making my own little two cents of renewal contribution!

Any notice of developments happening just east of downtown core?

[Pearlstreet]

This is a property many downtowner's should be familliar with:

103 LOCKE STREET SOUTH.

Just north of the rail tracks, on the east side of Locke Street this older foreign grocery store sits. Last year it had a 'due to tenant dispute' closure notice, more recently had a 'for lease' sign in its windows, but no longer does. I wonder if it was a Vranich purchase for later development.

It has been vacant in a good, thriving location for years now. I can't see getting a tenant for it to be that difficult. Having anything there would be great of course as it stretches the length of the whole block.

See picture (taken by myself):

[pEte fiSt iN Ur fAce]

Wow...that's one of the grimmest photos I've seen in a while.

The last I heard, something was planned for that spot. But like so many other projects in this city, it remains to be seen whether it will transpire or not.

I'm sure Steeltown has info on this.

[Frankenrogers]

Here is what the Kirkendall Neighbourhood Association Newsletter says about that site.

Locke St. project on former S&S Grocery property -
(between Canada St. & Jackson St.): Proposed is a
seven-storey, 104-unit residential space with six ground
floor commercial spaces, 90 underground parking spaces
and nine above-ground visitor parking spaces

http://kirkendallhood.ca/wp-content/...er-Feb2012.pdf

[Frankenrogers]

My wife asked what I was commenting on so I showed here the picture and she said almost the exact same thing as above, "Wow that looks ugly". I told her, that its been empty on the hottest street in Hamilton forever and she asked if the same guy that owns 220 Dundurn owns this property.

[realcity]

Stelco Tower is 50% vacant and has been for about 25 years.

[CaptainKirk]

Originally Posted by realcity

Check the stats buddy. Wards 1, 2, 3, and 4 have been losing population at the same rate of Buffalo and Cleveland.

Do you have a source for that?

Here are the population changes that I found over the last 10 years:

1. Ward 1 -6.5%
2. Ward 2 -2.2%
3. Ward 3 -4.5%
4. Ward 4 -1.1%
5. Ward 5 -5.8%
6. Buffalo -10.7%
7. Cleveland -17.1

And unlike Cleveland and Buffalo, the trend over the last 5 years has pretty much stagnated, and that's attributed to shrinking families as dwelling stock has remained the same, except in Ward 2 where there was a slight increase in population due to condo development.

Here are the most current population trends that I found over the last 5years:

1. Ward 1 -1.9%
2. Ward 2 +0.43%
3. Ward 3 -2.0%
4. Ward 4 -1.7%
5. Ward 5 -0.6%
6. Buffalo -7.6%
7. Cleveland -12.2%

So, as Hamilton's population continues to grow, where Buffalo's and Cleveland's continue to shrink, it's apparent that over the last few years, Hamilton has turned the corner.


http://www.hamilton.ca/Hamilton.Port...iles-Ward2.pdf
http://raisethehammer.org/article/1541/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland
http://best-cities.findthebest.com/q...Cleveland-Ohio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...falo,_New_York

[realcity]

Hamilton's population continues to grow? If we didn't amalgamate our highway signs would be showing population under 300,000.

[durandy]

Realcity, either you can treat those stats as an argument for abandoning the core and allowing sprawl development to continue, or you can argue that we need to curb sprawl through a combination of incentives to stay downtown (LRT) and disincentives to move (making sprawl more expensive). If you're on SSP it means you think cities have some value that suburbs don't. You don't need to argue for LRT but arguing against it on the basis of population decline is essentially giving up.

[CaptainKirk]

Originally Posted by realcity

Hamilton's population continues to grow?

Yes, by more than 15,00 in the last 5 years, and 30,000 in the last 10 years. Sustained growth

http://www.thespec.com/news/local/ar...but-still-good

http://www.hamilton.ca/CityDepartmen...andFigures.htm

I love how when people look at facts and still see something different.... must be an NDPer. You posted numbers showing the lower city still losing population, and claim our population continues to grow. If we didn't amalgamate our highway signs would be showing population under 300,000.

Wrong. i'm not an NDPer.
Wrong, population continues to grow.
All population numbers I've shown are post amalagamation

The Board can't fill schools in Wards 1 - 4. What's that indicative of?

That's already been addressed. Shrinking families.

We're maybe not shrinking as fast as Buffalo,

Glad to see you see admit your error.

but our trend has been going like that for much longer than 10 years. The population in the lower city peaked somewhere in the 70s and has been going downward since.

Source?

Worse yet is the population is older, retired, on fixed income and higher than average living in poverty. So the people living there are there because it's cheap housing.

You are providing an argument for public transit.

Why is there no supermarket downtown again?

Fortinos on Dundurn, Food Basics at Barton and Mary, Farmers' market and the plan to subidise a new one right in the middle of the core.

O ya, because the population is decreasing and the people living there don't have money.

Wrong again. Did you not see the stat that ward 2 population increased, or are you ignoring it. And again, those who cannot afford a car, rely on public transit.

And again, as mentioned before, you will not see substantial population growth in the lower wards because there is no room for building new residences. It's all built up for the most part, and the small shrinkage has been attributed to the smaller family.

Building stock is the same and, significant growth can only occur if housing density increases by replacing current building stock with multi residential dwellings such as condos, which, BTW is what has happened, time and again, in other places that have built transit lines such as LRTs.

[realcity]

no room for growth. been to Toronto lately. Developers are now tearing down 1970s 10-story buildings to make room for a 40-story.

face the facts, I'm not making an argument for anything, it;s just facts, Hamilton's lower city population is decreasing and has been for decades and getting poorer too. Chart it out over the last 50 years, a little blip in Ward 2 one census doesn't mean the trend reversed. I would like it to mean that, but here is your homework. Chart Hamilton's population on a graph since 1945 to today.

And thanks for your references and a decent post. Much better than what normally happens around here when someone posts something against the norm. No wonder these threads around here went silent.

And LRT won't happen, not in my lifetime. Mississauga will get a Hurontatio LRT and probably a Burnamthorpe LRT before we do. Because the governments don't care about Hamilton, because we only vote NDP. And look how much our sacred NDP care about the Board of Ed leaving downtown.