Apex Condos | ? | 23 fl | Approved
 

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...3/9425efa2.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...3/30f1b6fb.jpg
by me from today

The Frisina website says they are a Residential/Commercial/Institutional developer. It also says they built Landmark Place. They are presently located on Hughson.

That certainly looks right at home in the suburbs.

Agreed - It interacts horribly with the street. Hopefully it's not an actual rendering but just a concept.

From my understanding, it's the actual render.

It seems like there is either retail or res. units (?) on the Queen St side of the bldg? lol

Weird lil piece of architecture.

I don't mind the design, it kinda reminds me of the office building in the Meadowlands. Too bad this wasn't built five years ago, might have kept Dalton Timmis Insurance in the area.

I like the black facade, modern and clean. The surrounding area are all mostly 2 to 3 stories so this will blend it.

Glad to see Frisina is back at it, hopefully the son will carry on his father's legacy.

...and that's the problem, my friend.

Certainly looks better than the gas station that was there previously and much preferred to the strip plaza across the street. The height and street frontage looks right. Although people can't seem to get away from the whole stone facade thing right now.

Little victories, eh?

My primary concern is that having new construction along these lines will reinforce Main St. as the quasi-freeway thoroughfare it currently is, instead of planning new construction around what most sane people agree will be an eventual lane reduction and transition to two-way traffic.

At the very least, I hope council has the common sense to wait until the B-line LRT route is nailed down before giving it the go-ahead. Should the line end up on Main, construction like this would be a real waste of prime spinoff potential. For goodness sake, isn't there an LRT stop planned for Queen?

As for looking better than the plaza across the street, I agree, but with the caveat that this is new construction the neighbourhood would be stuck with for the next 50 years, whereas the plaza could obviously be redeveloped in the event that Main is converted to two-way and/or LRT.

Frisina has been back at it a while, just in a very conventional, conservative mode. The company's Twitter account hints at an appetite for more progressive development, but we'll see. A footprint at this location (even at the SW edge of the downtown) surely means something. An industrial commercial condo like this would be equally at home on a service road off the highway, so this may signal something.

On first glance, the street personality is a bit hostile to pedestrians, more so even than the Bay/Main Bank of Montreal (here it's built right to the narrow sidewalk on Main), but that's the norm on that stretch of road and I'll take it on faith that this is just a rendering. It wasn't that long ago that the company was looking to "build to suit," so I'm not sure what tipped the balance for them here, aside from branding the company – their current offices above the GO station on Hughson South are more downtown than this, but low-key. I must say, though, that this may be a fairly inert presence, since its cornerstone tenants will be Frisina and Royal LePage and there's certainly no shortage of office space in the core.

Al Frisina has submitted his plans to the City.

First he needs to change the bylaw zoning from Community Shopping and Commerical to retail/office.

The site plan contains underground parking.

Lintack is the architect.

Looks like progress is being made....

http://www.hamilton.ca/NR/rdonlyres/.../BillNo067.pdf

Requesting to amend zoning by-law.

If Main St were a slower, friendlier street, we'd likely see a better design. As it is, though, nobody wants to sit outside at a cafe on Main [or Queen for that matter], so it's only natural that this is what we're being given.

They've found a tenant! National Bank

http://www.hamilton.ca/NR/rdonlyres/...__PED12212.pdf

That a grant in the estimated amount of $162,390.31 under the Hamilton Downtown Property Improvement Grant Program

But it's now 2 storey instead of 3.

The gap in the teeth is no more - how exciting! I have been anticipating forever as I'm close by. What a ton of good advancement in the past few weeks, making my head spin...

a bank branch? Crazy! This will be invisible to traffic coming up the hill. Once cars drive out of the parking lot they'll be routed into a right turning lane taking them into the labyrinth of Queen st S. It gets hardly any pedestrian traffic because Main is such a shitshow.

It only makes sense if the street is two-way or if they're counting on traffic coming north on Queen.

Great news but really weird choice. But on the bright side, the more serious businesses we get on Main (and I don't mean Zizzo's car wash), the more the case for two-way will be strengthened.

Unfortunatly this could also make a case against 2 way as people might say oh look main street is attracting business even though its one way!

Just saying!

I am all for 2 way though!

I'll eat my shoe if Main goes two-way in the next 25 years.

Two-way proponents (such as myself) should start to aim a little lower and push for fewer lanes (2-3) with parking and a cycling lane. The two-way issue is far too explosive to even be broached by our too-lame City councillors and staff.

funny thing is there's already parking on stretches of Main - but the street is so bad that people don't use it. Too afraid to stop I think. I once parked at the meters at Main and Locke and both of them were practically rusted shut. Neither took my money.

I think if we first got rid of the green wave, then a bicycle lane, then two way might be more realistic.

But on the other hand with the Vranich and Mac developments and all the other business popping up on the street, it will be increasingly hard to discount the economic sense of making it two way. And if council is swayed by anything it's money.

Driving past today I noticed that the renderings have been removed, though the 235 Main West website still features the same image. Anyone have a project update?

This site is back up for sale for $2.75M: http://www.collierscanada.com/16139#.VNHCytJ4qLU

It's currently zoned for Community Shopping and Commercial, but there were concepts for multi-residential condo development.

Any thoughts?

So there a development company...why don't they built this?

Maybe they want to focus on their proposed $50M condo development at the old Kresge building (Delta Bingo)?

http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story...sge-building-/

But I get what you're saying, I'm not sure...

Saw this on my way to work last night..
 

wasn't there on Friday, and certainly caught my attention that I had to stop and get a few pics this morning.. Maybe I'm working too many night shifts and this has always been there, but..

I dunno..??
Thoughts? Is that an addition to the 3 floors from before?

https://i.imgur.com/kk2Omy0.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/WHoMhwk.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/T0TTaMy.jpg

finally!! I've been hoping for a height addition to this site. It's such a prominent 'gateway' to downtown location.
Thankfully it's not in Durand either. Although Kirkendall can be quite NIMBY too. But nobody is as bad as Durand.

Looks pretty sweet! It'll be nice to see this corner not look so ghetto :)

Frisina is no longer involved at the Kresge's site. It is being developed by LIUNA.

https://s18.postimg.org/7n6rpeezt/5_...7_EE05_B10.jpg
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delete

Hopefully the more urban projects we see proposed downtown, the neighbourhood groups will get tired of freaking out every. single. time.

Wow I never realized how close to the sidewalk it is.. very loom-y hehe... kinda reminds me of the building across from the Tivoli they built.. but in a good way.. some nice presence there :)

I do like how the top part angles back though - we need more angled buildings.

*EDIT* - actually it looks like it's consistent all the way up - it's just perspective that makes it look like it's angling back.. still nice look :)

Not sure if I like the wood panel design look though.. maybe it will grow on me.. reminds me of the 80s basement rec rooms a bit hehe..

Yeah, design aside, that last picture says it all. Until they get Main St sorted, it's going to be difficult to attract any decent development to that corridor.

Keep it one-way - fine - but they need those curb lanes closed for parking because it's a very uncomfortable experience walking or cycling along Main.

Could look pretty good, or really cheap, depending on materials.

The image probably hasn't been properly scaled (the cars on Main look a little narrow too) but yeah that's right up against the sidewalk as it's shown. It's not a huge lot though so they're probably going to use as much of it as they can.

Naturally I'm delighted to see this corner developed, but that's a pretty ugly building. Make the whole thing glass.

Not to mention, those commercial/retail spots won't fill as long as Main has a pencil-thin, pedestrian-alienating sidewalk adjacent to an expressway.

It's time to widen the sidewalks, add bike lanes, calm the traffic, and--gasp!--convert to two-way traffic.

This would be so nice, stop making me dream

look at the dates. This is 7 years old already. That's at least one whole economic cycle. There is an new antonym for GodSpeed it's called Hammerspeed.

What dates are you looking at? The thread's?

From the sign, 18 in both the plan amendment file number ("UHOPA-18-05") and zoning amendment number ("ZAC-18-012") refer to 2018.

The thread may have begun in 2011, but this is a new development application for the site.

I guess I was going by the thread dates. Can I get my hopes up then.? This has been taking forever, should be prime realestate.

That podium is ugly.

I always find it amusing to look at the start of thread dates. It's amazing how long some projects take. Personally I think it is more the city.

Website: 235mainstw.urbanshare.info

https://i.imgur.com/SfdDXS9.jpg
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Full Size:


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https://i.imgur.com/p5fxAko.jpg
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https://i.imgur.com/4AH8W5L.jpg
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oooh, very cool angles

No more red brick on downtown buildings, pleeeeease !!

Agreed. But this is looking much better to me now.

I worry about the commercial space being filled. Might take awhile, considering that the newly converted houses across the street are probably 35% vacant.

I don't mind red bricks as long as they're actual, real clay bricks. This building proposes "terracotta coloured cement panels" for the podium with acrylic stucco on the upper floors.

No thanks!

This is going to look cheap as hell. Not a fan of the brick panels.

G r o s s !

It hasn't got any better over the years. There's just more it now.

Hire an architect maybe?

This is no better than 70s 20-story slabs all over Durand, maybe even worse in some regards. Good luck with the retail. Maybe a Coffee Culture, nope tried that, maybe a CashMoney. nope can't do that. No really fill the podium with a Winners, Dollarama and Metro at ground, large scale retail. Forget dicing it up into twenty-five, 1000 sq ft retail boutiques.

This also what I recommend the podium of Century 21 do. The small family law offices don't work in there. There is a large asian community there that would eat that up. But knowing the City they probably have a parking requirement for that type of retail.

Brick panels is pretty much what everyone is now proposing to do it seems which is sad.. it's like building an Ikea building..