Residential construction just roaring ahead - commercial not as good.

News 100 redBy Pepper Parr

December 17, 2106

BURLINGTON, ON

 

Call it intensification.

Call it developers knowing what a hot market looks like.

Call it money looking for a place to grow.

Whichever, the city is just a hustle and a bustle with residential building.

paradigm-from-driveway-dec-16-16

First of the five towers going up on Fairview next to the GO station and across the driveway from Walmart. This building is sold out.

There is the Paradigm on Fairview next to the GO station and across a driveway from Walmart that will definitely undergo an upgrade once the Paradigm condo owners start moving in. Expect to see Sushi in the coolers.

Berkeley

The Berkeley – first of three phase project.

bently-on-john-best-dec-16

Back hoes deepening the site for concrete pouring.

Just a bit south at the intersection of John and Caroline the first phase of the Berkeley has broken ground.

The 20 storey condominium is digging the hole in the ground and will begin pouring concrete doping the form work to be able to pour concrete.

This project consists of three buildings – the upscale 20 storey structure made up of three storey columned stone and precast podium from which will rise a 17-storey glass tower condominium. The residential building will front on to Pine Street. On Caroline, the northern boundary of the development plans are for a multi-storey building to be known as MedicaOne. In between the two here will be an eight floor parking garage that will have a grass roof.

It has taken some time to get this project to the point where construction could begin. One of the issues was getting hydro to the site. The developer was expected to pay for the full cost of hauling the necessary power lines from the substation on Lakeshore Road up to the project. Anyone building between the development at John and Caroline and Lakeshore was going to be able to tap into the lines the Carriage Gate people had paid for – which wasn’t quite the way Nick Carnacelli saw it. He stood his ground.

bridgewater-looking-over-lake-best

Parking levels for the Bridgewater are being completed – a single garage will serve all three buildings with the entrance off the bottom of Elizabeth street.

Moving further south – the parking levels that will serve the three buildings that will make up the Bridgewater development are now well under way. The parking levels will be four at the north end and three closer to the lake.

Bridgewater from lake on the east

An architect’s rendering of the Bridgewater project – seen from the lake.

Bridgewater is another three structure development all attached to each other with a shared underground parking arrangement.

The 22 story condominium that will set a record for height in this city. It was defied as a “legacy” site when it was approved in the mid 90’s. No one has ever explained what it means to be a legacy; some think it was the crack that opens the door to really high – high rise.

All this got done when then Mayor Walter Mulkewich wore the chain of office.

The assembly of the land with the related zoning changes began in 1985. One needs to be patient to develop in Burlington.

Bridgewater Aerial-rendering-1024x758

The public portion of the Bridgewater project seen in the center

There will be an eight storey Marriott hotel and a seven storey condominium south of the hotel. The entrance to the hotel will be on Elizabeth Street.

There will be an opening on Lakeshore Road between the hotel and the condominium that will give the public access to open space that will lead right to the water’s edge.

The 22 storey’s did catch the attention of other developers who are pushing for 26 storeys across the street and other developers who talk privately about 40 storey structures along Lakeshore – there are after all those wonderful views of the Lake. How high up do they have to go to be able to see Niagara Falls?

saxony-digging-shale-3rd-floor-parking-dec-2016

On a cold Friday the only people working on construction sites were those doing back hoe work. Here shale is being broken up on the Saxony site.

Head west where the Saxony is also digging away. They are chipping through shale for the three levels of parking that will be put in for the five storey structure.

Saxony early version - classical

The Saxony was one of those project that went through with hardly a hitch – and sold out without even opening up a sales office.

To get a sense as to just how hot the Burlington market is – the Saxony rented space in the Sims building – kitty corner from the construction site, for a sales office. They didn’t even have to open up a sales office – the units were sold out before they could get any furniture in.

The Saxony has done a superb job of creating a high end property that includes a small theatre. Residents will be able to reserve the theatre to show a recent release movie to friends. Can’t you just see a bunch of the guys gathering to watch the Montreal Canadiens beat the Toronto Maple Leafs – again, in what will be a private theatre?

This is probably not one of the measure s used to make Burlington the Best mid-sized city in the country. It is a hop skip and a small jump from the Pier that we paid twice the price that we expected to pay.

With the city well into the first week of winter, which doesn’t begin officially until Wednesday of next week – there wasn’t any concrete pouring being done on any of the sites.

Just too darn cold.

paradigm-dec-2016-snow-no-pour

It was a Friday and it was cold. The men who build the forms and direct the pouring of concrete didn’t want to work – so they didn’t. The Paradigm has sold out on two of the first three towers going up on this five tower site.

The city is probably ahead of the intensification target it was given – what we aren’t seeing are office towers where people who live in the city can work.

Construction is going great guns – economic development – not nearly as well. Has the Economic Development Corporation got any announcements in the pipeline?

The vinyl record pressing operation that is about to be fully operational certainly wasn’t impressed with what the city did for them.

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7 comments to Residential construction just roaring ahead – commercial not as good.

  • Ken White

    An important clue as to what the hell is going on is the repeated statement by Mary Lou Tanner that population growth drives job growth. There is of course no economic foundation for this statement but if “you” believe it you can see a justification for unbridled residential development.

    There are employment lands however it seems quite a stretch that “all of a sudden” jobs will appear to employ all the new citizens of Burlington or that new workers be coming to Burlington due to new job growth.

    No–we’re just going to change from being a bedroom community of single family homes to a bedroom community of high rise condos.

    • Tom Muir

      It’s not a matter of belief so much as it’s a convenient assertion that fits into her Plans, which of course is our new OP.

      If it’s not happening on the ground to be observed, then it’s not happening. A very bad assumption and strategic error for a professional planner, that’s either an honest mistake or politically motivated BS.

      Jobs and population only co-occur, and only maybe, if the economy planning space they occupy is the same space. If the planners don’t couple the population and jobs targets of provincial Growth Plans, for each planning space, then they will never happen.

      The GO train stations parking lots are already full, and expansion is planned, so that’s another signal that the jobs are somewhere else.

      As far as people commenting here can see this will just continue unless our planners and plans do something.

  • Tom Muir

    “Legacy” means that long back in the past the city tricked themselves with grand plans, like they did with the pier, and agreed to the height in the OP and the zoning. Later, they regretted it but it was too late.

    This gave the landowner the legal right that the city couldn’t take back. I actually asked former Mayor McIsaac, at a public meeting about this, and he said, as a lawyer himself, that this was a legal right that obliged the city, BUT ONLY FOR THAT PARCEL.

    So we get the term LEGACY – a past mistake, but one that did not oblige the future.

    It’s like a legacy pollutant of the city OP and zoning, a mistake not to be repeated by necessity because of dire consequences.

    Or so they say, and we hope there’s some spine in that.

  • I used to wonder how places got like down town Hamilton. I don’t wonder any more. The city staff like lots about the run down areas of down town hamilton and they are bringing it here as fast as they can.

    What you are doing is transforming Burlington into a worker camp for economic refugees from Toronto. This sets up an unresolvable transit problem. Get ready for city wide gridlock. There is lots of new commercial it’s just that it’s up at Clapson’s corners and other areas of highway 5. The car as the sole means of sensible transportation is getting baked in like never before. Stores and schools are getting placed further away from people. West Aldershot is now technically a food desert.

    The cities current plan of “every place” intensification means no place will have pedestrian commercial density. There is no upside or possible benefit to the current pattern. You don’t need more people in Burlington commuting to Toronto. You need more people working here to spread the pattern of transit and make a greater variety of businesses work here.

    • Tom Muir

      Greg, it’s really bad that you have to restate this over and over. In my engagements with city I am saying something the same.

      We just seem to have some brain dead planning direction that seems deaf to this happening. They talk about complete communities, where you can live, work, shop, walk, bike, transit, but all we see is the live part – the worker camps and economic refugees. Everything you say follows.

      Are we to believe the developers are in charge such that they don’t have to include any really significant commercial in their plans, but still call it mixed-use?

      The planners aren’t insisting on this now, and I see no talk or discussion papers showing the way. All they say is “maybe” or “we hope” that jobs will follow, in the future? What about us in the now?

      Councilor Craven doesn’t seem interested in really discussing anything but the more and higher condos, and he has been hostile to suggestions I have made to him. He doesn’t want to hear it or talk about how we can get there.

      Like you say, nothing will work the way we are going, and this Gazette story tells part of this. The other un-workables just go along with it.

      Something must be done.

      • Phillip

        This city is quickly developing the characteristics of Mississauga–ugly high-rises that increase overcrowding & gridlock and they destroy the fabric that made Burlington such a desirable place to live. The something is quite clear–this mayor & council are unable and unwilling to consider any other metric for Burlington and must be replaced. I hope that the residents/taxpayers have had enough and will be motivated in 2018 to get off their butts on election day and kick this crew to the curb.

      • It’s spooky how clever some ppl are. Thksan!