215 & 217 King Street West | 48 m | 14 fl | Proposed
 

The proposed development is a 14 storey residential building with 3 levels of underground parking total height of 48.4m and a gross floor area of 5926.1sm. total parking provided 23 with a shortage of 9 parking spaces.

https://i.imgur.com/CB9jLhT.png

I’ll take the background tower on an empty parking in the core please. ☺️

This is a good size here. Very ordinary design but expected.

A closer look:

https://i.imgur.com/ICPTmEXh.jpeg

23 spaces on 3 levels of underground!? That's like 7-8 spaces a level. I imagine car elevators are in use here?

This stretch of King is going to look radically different in the next 3 years. With the influx of people i'm expecting some trendy bars and restaurants to open on the north side of the street eventually. Probably will become a destination like James North or Augusta.

3 years from now, the only difference will be that Mac's grad residence is occupied. 50/50 chance Radio Arts is occupied. Also, LRT construction will have shut down the street which doesn't exactly support a James N/ Augusta vibe. This is overly optimistic.

Who's the developer here, and how many residential apartments are proposed?

Pretty sure it's Vranich.

I like it.. it's cute.. nothing flashy design wise but I think it will be a good fit.

Good size for the small lot. If it's a Vranich though, there's a chance it will end up being taller. :)

There are already some good restaurants between Queen and Bay; hopefully they survive the construction, and the city needs to do everything it can to preserve pedestrian access.

It's always been odd (but unfortunately too common for Hamilton) that only the one side of the street has had that many businesses. I can't recall what may have been on the south side, before Hortons and the food mart were built, aside from the used car lot and loans place at the SE corner at Caroline... I imagine the streetwall was at one time more like that of the north side of King (especially the Caroline-Hess block)

Some aerial images were included from the 60's in the heritage report as part of this submission. Looks like the south side was never as built up as the north... well at least not for the past 60 years.

My memories go as far back as the 1980s when I started taking the bus as a teen and paying attention to the cityscape, but the '60s would align with the era of 'urban renewal' that cleared out so much of the city's "decay" :koko: Given the other large parking lots in this part of town -- some of which have only been developed in the fairly recent past -- I wouldn't be surprised if all the old stuff was cleared out around that time. Some of it could have been destroyed by fire too, though I doubt that would have been responsible in many cases.

There must be some historical photos out there.

The mcmaster aerial maps viewer shows in 1898 that thestretch between Caroline and Hess was not nearly as dense as the north side.

https://library.mcmaster.ca/maps/aer...tos/index.html

Thanks.

I just spent most of the afternoon looking through the historical photos thread. To no avail.

Whether anything had changed between the turn-of-the-20th-century-or-so and the 1950s... :???:

The fire insurance maps are also a good resource for what once was

Wow very nice to see but PLEASE snap up the Tim Hortons lot as well. Anything that is single story along this stretch is a complete waste!

The west elevation is without windows at the podium. So they are probably expecting a future development there at some point.

A longer mid-rise that takes up both properties would be ideal: a Kiwi on King West. But 'gimme my Timmies' holds out.

That Tim Hortons is GRUBBY although it sometimes has donuts that are not available anywhere else(hello Coconut Apple Fritters!) Nothing here that couldn't be in the bottom of a tower though.

Also if it's Vranich occupancy will be 12 months from the day they start foundation work ;)
Darko doesn't Dilly dally

Unless it’s King at Queen which has been stalled for what? A year?
And the retail ground floor will sit unoccupied for years. Ugh.

I was wondering when this was going to be redeveloped - as was said - anything 1 story along this stretch is a waste

He was the master of his own delay there given the big changes he sought from the original plan.

It’s almost Vancouver-Esque…. Will hopefully create a completely filled in intersection, something we don’t have many of yet.

Spoke to the staff at the variety store, not the owner, so take with grain of salt, but staff were very confused by the fact there was a proposal. He said the owner of the variety store just signed an extension to a 20 year lease at the property. So either this proposal is an attempt to sell the land for more money, or they plan on cutting the lease short if it's approved.

They will definitely cut the lease short....

Leases typically have development clauses. It's not unusual for tenants to be confused about development applications.

That's all very fair, just sharing what I've heard.

Has anyone confirmed who the developer/ owner is here?

Another tower planned for King and Caroline in downtown Hamilton

Proposed development would bring 77 residential units as the tower replaces a small plaza

Feb. 27, 2025 | Fallon Hewitt | Hamilton Spectator

Another corner of downtown Hamilton is slated for a big change.

The southwest corner of King Street West and Caroline Street South has been pegged for redevelopment by Oakville-based Lavish Design Build, which plans to bulldoze the lot and build a mixed-use condo tower.

That part of the intersection — 215-217 King St. W. — is currently home to a small retail plaza, consisting of a convenience store and longtime shawarma spot Vida La Pita.

The proposed development would see the construction of a 14-storey building, with a five-storey podium and nine-storey tower, according to a minor variance application recently submitted to the city.

There would be roughly 77 dwelling units, some retail space and 18 parking spaces split across three levels of an underground parking garage.

The developer has applied for a minor variance from the city, with that application set to be heard in March. The variances relate to areas such as accessible parking, the height of the building and design features of the proposed tower.

City spokesperson Lauren Vastano told The Spectator that the development received “conditional site plan approval” in late January.

The project has been in the works for sometime, according to city documents, with a slightly different proposal coming before the design review panel in October 2022.

The rest of the article.

https://www.thespec.com/business/ham...3b93de77e.html

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...e097040a_c.jpgSaplys Architects Inc. image on Flickr