in Mpls one time and they had a Subway and Cariboo Coffee and Smoothie shop in apartment at LRT station, all were packed in the AM by business people then later in day (after their workday) they were all packed again. great concept is you have the mass of people

With the triangle lot just east of this, and the old MB Housing lots across the street, lots of potential to really densify this area.

Also, that's all the more reason why the Parker Lands proposal, and plans for much of the other "TOD" development (trans: land near BRT stations) are absolutely absurd and destined to be a failure in terms of density, retail development, and general usefulness. What a mess.

I know I've said this a few times before throughout SSP. But I'm really excited to see what opportunities arise for TOD in the east P&M/Exchange area. BRT will (may) extend from Union Station through the sea of parking lots adjacent to the CN track. Would seem there is real opportunity there for high density, integrated TOD. The BRT could go directly below/through a nice hise rise development. Would be amazing. Then step back down the building heights as you go north into the exchange to the lower 6-8 storey buildings.

It's unfortunate that it's going to take botching the entire design of the SWBRT line and areas around the stations for the city to learn and (hopefully) plan the next legs better.

The building immediately north of Union Station is planned to be a parkade owned by The Forks right now.

The part with townhouses in the render has now been replaced with a glazed common area looking out onto a narrow outdoor dog run.

Too bad about the townhouses and bummer about the insane parking requirements (sort of undermines the whole idea of this as transit oriented development) but I think it should end up better than just a giant street-facing parkade.

I am always amazed at how shitty the Winter Club looks. Amazing to me that people fork over the giant membership fees there. I guess it's less about the building and more about shitty insular elbow-rubbing.

Sorry, what building immediately north of Union Station? I thought there was nothing to the north of that building except the government parking lot, and then the Earl's across the street?

Sorry if that was unclear, the plan in the medium turn is to turn that VIA parking lot into a parkade. Likely in 5ish years, as parking gets swallowed by development, TFNP wants to be able to offset it, and they plan to put some there. You can see it on page 16 of this document, as well as other Railside plans.

They're moving quick - "demolition" started today. Imrie had the whole concrete surface completely ripped up by noon.

Nice to see them getting to this immediately. Curious who owns the curved lot at the corner? Is it WWC property or does it have a chance for a future, better development?

There's also fencing up around the old MB Housing complex on River/Mayfair now too. No word on that lot.

Winter club owns that lot. Overflow parking. I wouldn't hold my breath on that getting developed anytime soon. I do see cars parked there sometimes.

It's a gravel lot - is that even allowed?

No it's not. But if the unpaved parking lot was established before the Zoning By-law went into effect (2006), which I'm sure it was, the City can't forced them to pave it.

If they wanted to create a new parking lot, it would be forced to meet the requirements of the Zoning By-law: paving, lighting, drainage, landscaping, etc. Or they could just do what some landowners downtown do and say their swampy gravel parking lot is only "temporary" and smooth-talk Council's downtown committee into giving them a conditional use every couple of years. But I digress...

The curvey lot is paved. The lot on the other side of the tennis courts is unpaved.

It's a shame about half the residents will have the WWC and its gravel lot as a view. Hopefully nearby areas receive a little bit of love as a result of this development.

Weird it looked like there was a bunch of gravel on it the other day.

Yeah, hopefully the developer & city work together to landscape the lane behind it. Will be interesting to see if they name the road by continuing either Bell Ave or Wood St (looking at the map now was the first time I saw Wood St existed. Waste of a name for the 20 ft of road lol).

The increase in density helps establish future demand...

Looks like they’re delivering a portable site office there this morning... anyone know when they they’re supposed to start construction?

I haven't heard any murmurs about this one.... have their been any crews? Don't want to be teased again like the various trucks on 201's north lot...

Maybe for geotech work.

Happy they're building it but it looks like a commie block.

No that's pretty nice. You wanna see commie block, you gotta head out to small city east Germany. Haha I've been living there for 6 months. Winnipeg has nothing on these Soviet era blocks!