I attended the Zoom meeting yesterday. Here are a few details that came out. I didn't take any notes so my numbers might be a little off.
The developer is Rimap from Montreal. They specialize in rental apartments and hotels (including the
AC Marriott in Montreal). It turns out they are also developing the
AC Marriott on Rideau one block north of this new proposal. In fact, he confirmed that work would start very soon and that the 126 York parking on George will be used as a staging area for the Marriott construction.
- Full adaptive reuse of the heritage warehouse (Major Building (in French, pronounced ma-jore)), only a three storey addition on the east side and elevator shaft at the back will be demolished;
- Side windows will be expanded and brick might be added to match the front;
- The complex will be mixed use hotel (around 200 rooms) and rental apartments (roughly 210 units);
- Hotel lobby and restaurant will be on the first floor of Major;
- Two or three floors for the hotel use (continuous floors from York to George);
- Top one or two floors of Major and remainder of the modern tower will be rental apartments;
- Shared amenities (pool, gym and other) will be on the roof of Major (the step additions);
- Laneway on the west side will be added to access the hotel drop off at the middle of the site, under the link between the heritage building and the new tower. This laneway provides some space between the Major development and Claridge Land.
Rimap has rearranged the allowed massing of the building so that the Major could be better exposed. This results in a 21 or so storey tower on George up from 18 (?) allowed. Zoning would allow 9 floors behind the York face of Major and a full envelopment which would usually mean facadism (my take, not the developers).
Someone asked a question on somehow honouring S.J. Major and the developer expressed a desire to get in touch with the Major family to discuss. It turned out someone from the family was on the call and Fleury took the person's contact info to give to the developer.
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Originally Posted by Urbanarchit
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For now, the tower portion is just massing, not the final version, but they did show River City as an example of what they are trying to achieve.