Quote:
Originally Posted by Papabear1
I found this comment interesting. I'll start this by saying I've always considered Saskatoon as my home city, coming from a small town nearby. And I still frequent S'toon 2 to 3 times a year.
In Kelowna, a city half the size of Saskatoon, we currently have 12 towers in the development phase and 4 under construction. These range from 13 to 42 floors with most being in that 28 -32 range. City wide, I believe we have around 29 towers in development or under construction. Why so many? For this area, its land. Mountains and agricultural land box everything in so we can't do the urban sprawl that Saskatoon can.
There was an article in the Star Phoenix last year about DT S'toon being at a tipping point which spoke of services for less fortunate and overall housing need for everyone in the downtown core. The story also said that "Saskatoon dream" was to own a home and raise a family. My point here would be that it's not everyone's dream. I'm sure there a quite a few people who would love to live DT if there were options beyond rental or older condo style towers.
A number of years ago, the goal was to have 10k residing in the DT core. What projects have been approved or applied for that hasn't been torn to shreds by planning and or nimby's to the point a developer simply needs to walk away from the dream? I don't know, just asking and the Baydo Towers don't count as they would be in the City Park area and not a contributing number to the DT residing population.
River Landing is a great start to revive the core and if/when the arena moves the amount of people wishing to live closer to amenities or the after hour vibes that will grow will also increase. Google says the current population residing in the core is around 3,300 yet between 18K- 20K work downtown. Logic says alot of those workers would rather live closer to work than driving in from the "burbs" on a daily basis.
So back to the original comment from mitchellk12. My view is that not only can Saskatoon sustain a 30 storey tower, build one and more will quickly follow based off it's success. My only concern is that it appears most of the applications being made are for rental units. Build a few condo towers to allow pride of ownership start to grow DT.
Just some thoughts from an outsider.
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Saskatoon's pallid downtown is definitely a shocker to newbies who come here expecting much more in the way of volume and height! It's probably not just planning and nimbyism responsible for this sad state of affairs, but also things like a not particularly entrepreneurial population. Hopefully, the climate is changing for the better with a new generation of developers coming from outside Toon Town interested in making over Canada's most wanting skyline.
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