Final stages of a project in the planning stages for more than 20 years. A Delta Hotel and two condos to go up on Lakeshore Road.

By Pepper Parr

BURLINGTON, ON  November 20, 2012  A project that has been in the works for more than 20 years cleared another hurdle and is one more hurdle away from applying for a building permit, which the city will have to issue. The Committee of Adjustment approved all 15 minor variances asked for by Mayrose Tyco, the company that has worked to put a “landmark” structure at the edge of Lake Ontario.

What is now a flat empty lot on the south side of Lakeshore road will become a bustling construction site just about the time city council expects the pier to open. During the next three years, three structures will rise from the site – one 22 storeys into the sky. Burlington will finally have its landmark structure.

Committee of Adjustment meets to handle minor variances that a citizen wants made to a zoning by-law, usually for something they want to do with their property.

The committee has a chair and four members appointed to the committee by the city.  Each has a vote and the majority prevails.  The Committee has to answer four questions in the affirmative in order for the variance being asked for to be granted.  Those questions are:

1:  Do the proposed minor variances from the zoning by-law maintain the general intent  and purpose of the Official Plan?

2:  Do the proposed minor variances from the zoning bylaw maintain the general intent and purpose of the zoning by-law?

3:  Are the proposed minor variances from the zoning by-law desirable for the appropriate development or use of the land, building or structure?

4:  Are the proposed minor variances from the zoning bylaw considered minor in nature.

Get a yes to all these and you’ll probably get what you were asking for – but you have to get that yes from at least three of the five members of the committee.

Last week, we attended our first ever Committee of Adjustment hearing because the Mayrose Tyco Corporation was asking for 15, yes 15 minor variances on the three structure project that is going to be built at the intersection of Lakeshore Road and Elizabeth streets.  This one has been a long time coming and except for one more hearing at the Conservation Authority the project will be ready to apply for a building permit and then the digging begins.

It will be the largest construction undertaking this city has seen for some time.  A builder hasn’t been appointed yet – the document needed from the Conservation Authority has to be in hand before they make that announcement.

But that Building Permit application is in the process of being drawn up.

The Riviera Motel is now nothing but a memory – the bulldozers were pulling that down last week.

The next step is readying the lot for the construction which is going to take at least three years.

The rendering needs a really close look to fully understand what the developer had to work with and what is going to be built.  Start with the open space in the centre.  Due to the grade there is all kinds of terracing necessary to get people from the street level to the waterfront.  No one in a wheel chair is going to get down that part of the site.  There is a curved roadway to the east of the large condo on the right.  There are opportunities for some very upscale commercial on the right side of the Courtyard in the middle.  Can Burlington support that level of commercial?

All three structures will go up at basically the same time – an eight story Delta four star hotel that will face Lakeshore Road and have an entrance on Elizabeth Street.  The building got an additional storey in height to accommodate the 152 rooms that are a must if the hotel is to have a four star rating.

The buzz in the community was that the hotel would be open for the Pan American Games in 2015 – not true.

The first look for the public at the Delta four star hotel that shaped much of the later design of the project. The entrance to the hotel will be off Elizabeth Street which will be pushed through to south of Lakeshore Road.  The 22 storey condo is west of the hotel.  An additional seven storey condo will be south of the hotel.

The thinking is that the hotel won’t be completed in time and Four Stars in the hotel business that  means quality – this one isn’t going to be rushed to completion.

The project is “four to six months behind our original planning” said Ken Dakin, the project planner who has been the project planner since 1999 – he was involved with the project as far back as 1997.  He took the committee of Adjustment through each of the 15 variances he was asking for – and explained carefully the wisdom, as he saw it, of the changes he was asking the Committee to make.

There was a couple of what some might call “slights of hand” proposals, such as the decision to treat the hotel restaurant as one of the commercial elements that  the Committee agreed to go along with.  Another was the decision to convert some of the space on the east side of the hotel into residential rather than commercial.  The argument put forward by the project planner, quite persuasively, and we thought correctly, was that commercial just wasn’t going to survive on the east side next to the walkway that leads down to the waterfront.

The 22 storey condo has a slight triangular shape to it; narrower at the south end than the north end which allowed for balconies that will give every unit owner a decent view of the lake.  Balconies were not as in vogue when the project was first put forward.  At that time the height was a proposed 33 storey structure.  That didn’t fly.

View from Lakeshore Road looking south to the lake – 22 storey condo on the left with the four star Delta hotel on the right.  The access to the Courtyard is in between the two buildings.  There is also a winding pathway that is already in place on the east side (the left side in this rendering) that leads to the waters edge.  The Courtyard will be a series of shortish terraces to accommodate the grade which is actually quite steep.

While the public continually said they wanted commercial activity to the sides of the open space that will stretch from Lakeshore Road to the water’s edge the builders are concerned about finding commercial tenants who want to locate and can survive financially in an area where cold winds will roar in off the lake on some of those colder winter days.

The hotel wants the site to be upscale and not have a Tim Horton’s that becomes a 24 hour hangout on the property.  Finding the right commercial tenants will be a challenge.  The hotel will have a coffee shop of its own but the site could probably support a second one that is part of the open space at the centre of the three buildings.  A family restaurant would probably fit in as well – but where does one go from there?  Maybe the Art Centre could be convinced to open up a retail outlet – but the rent would have to be a bit of a gift.

The entrances to the three levels of parking space that will serve all three structures will be at the second floor level and there will be just the one entrance which is going to mean some very tight scheduling for vehicles wanting to get in and out of the garage.

The zoning bylaw called for 3 metres of space between the edge of the southern part of the hotel.  Given changes required by the Conservation Authority there wasn’t as much room as the planners originally had in mind.  But at the early stage the plan was for a 125 room hotel.  The need to move that up to 152 rooms – meant something had to give somewhere and that give is at the southern end of the hotel.  Look carefully at the illustration to see the challenge the architects faced.

The pathway to the east of the Mayrose Tyco project has been in place for a number of years. It was part of a land transfer that gave city land to the developer in exchange for the pathway and the walking space along the edge of the lake. The 22 storey condominium will sit beside the pathway.

The developer asked that the requirement for 272 commercial parking spaces be cut back to 152 raised some eyebrows.  The project planner explained the changes that have taken place since 2006 when the parking requirements were put in place.

In 2006 the property was not within the city’s Defined Parking area.  That Defined Parking Area is a part of the downtown core that “shares” parking space in the several city parking lots.  Properties within the Defined Parking Area can forgo the installation of on-site commercial parking and instead pay a levy to the city to guarantee access to the municipal lots and parking garages within the Defined Area.

Somewhere between 2006 and today that Defined Area boundary got moved to include the Mayrose Tyco development and with that stroke of a pen – there went the need for all that on-site commercial parking.

The 188 parking spaces for the residents who will eventually live in the condos still stands.  What this means is a real tightening of parking space in the area around the site.

Accessible parking spaces also took a hit.  There were to be 9 – the developer asked that it be reduced to 5.  The argument was that if the commercial space was being reduced by 60% (that was the 272 down to 152) then it would follow that the accessible spaces would also be reduced by 60%.  Explain the logic of that rationalization to people who need parking closer to the entrances of buildings.

There were a bunch of other small changes that made sense to the adjustment committee members who spent relatively little time on this application.  Much more time was spent on an applicant who wanted to put an addition on a house that a neighbour felt would intrude on their privacy.  That one didn’t get Committee of Adjustment approval.

The Bridgewater project will be a welcome addition to the city – it will be a wonderful site to spend time on and will open up a pathway from east of the Waterfront Hotel through to where the pier will be located and on into Spencer Smith Park.

This picture taken from close to the walkway that leads to the waters edge with the now demolished Riviera Motel in the background give some sense of the rather steep grade the architects had to work with.  A lot of terracing was needed to accommodate the drop from the street level to the waters edge.

What is missing however is any sense of grandness to it all.  The condo towers will soar into the sky and be the biggest thing this city has ever seen but on the ground it will be kind of cramped, small in scale and nowhere near what we see in European cities where public places are grander in scale.

The sad part is that the money behind this project is Austrian in nature.  Pity that they didn’t bring the tradition of grand public places to Burlington.

There were four people taking part in the Committee of Adjustment meeting.  Their concerns seemed to be related to how the structures would impact on their view of the lake.  There are literally hundreds of people in the immediate area who are going to see a hugely different architecture in front of them and many will be very upset.  Nothing they can do now – the appeal period is close to ending.  Next step is a document from the Conservation Authority and then on to city hall for the building permit – which the city must give them.

A view of the drop the architects had to work with as they redesigned the site when the larger hotel became part of the project.  The hotel will come very close to the concrete pathway.  It is a very challenging site.  The Riviera Motel has been demolished.

The developers have had this property in their hands for more than twenty years during which time they have seen little return on their investment.  When the major changes to the original proposal were made in 2006 the thinking was that we would see construction equipment on the site within a year.  The recession in 2000 put the bollocks to that plan.  It was basically impossible to get anyone to become a partner in the project.  Minto, a highly regarded developer in Toronto and Ottawa pulled out around 2010.  Mayrose Tyco was then squeezed by the Conservation Authority who advised them that there were some regulatory changes about to come into force that would result in a deeper set back from the edge of the water.  That would have changed far more than the developer wanted to even think about coping with.

They landed Delta as the hotel operator and re-worked the site to give the hotelier what they needed and still keep the condominium part of the project financially viable.  Now all they need is a robust economy through to 2015 when the condo units will be very much in demand.  Getting to this point meant some compromises from the original dream.

They chose to create a tight site rather than go for the expansiveness that we appreciate in Spencer Smith Park.

But twenty years is a long time to wait for a return.  And it will be a wonderful place to live if you can afford one of the condo’s – especially in that 22 storey tower.  Wonder what they will go for?


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3 comments to Final stages of a project in the planning stages for more than 20 years. A Delta Hotel and two condos to go up on Lakeshore Road.

  • Penny Hersh

    Once again the City is very short sighted with regard to parking. Where will the 80 employees that will work for the Delta Hotel park? Certainly not on site. The option of paying a parking levy instead of supplying parking spaces is a joke. The City still has not paid off the cost of the parking garage on Locust Street, and has no money to build any other in the downtown core. I hope that the residents of downtown frequent the stores in the core enough to keep them viable. Presently many residents of Burlington will not come downtown to shop because of the parking situation……and the Delta is not built as yet.

  • Hey “the building planner,” Looking at the south view the rooftop of the hotel would be a perfect place for a culinary garden and would be much more pleasant view for those living in the condos above both north (360 on Pearl) and south of Lakeshore. Something you could suggest to Delta perhaps? Also would you allow raised vegetable plots on the condo common rooftop? Burlington is moving towards more edible landscaping FYI, and this new development could set a prime example.

  • Hey, Nice and Informative post .. 🙂 Really Like it!!!