McMaster Graduate Student Residence | ? | 31 & 10 fl | Complete

[TheRitsman]

Originally Posted by ShavedParmesanCheese

Think about how much trouble it's been for them to have the new residence at 1190 Main W. built, when they build downtown they can go bigger and don't have the same hindrances as in Westdale.

That's in part because they're building it off their campus immediately next to existing neighbourhoods. I'm not saying I agree with the complaints, but if McMaster built buildings on their campus, as per the university's master plan they will likely see zero pushback. When they built the new residence and lecture hall building on campus next to Hedden Hall they had zero issues I'm pretty sure.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by Beedok

A good picture for anyone questioning Hamilton having the 4th densest downtown in Canada.

agreed.

Thanks for all the photo updates! This Mac project is rising fairly quickly.

[WhipperSnapper]

That photo does make me wonder what stats were used to determine the 4th densest downtown. It's certainly not built density. Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Ottawa, etc. have clearly more built density than this.

It shouldn't take long to fill the area in with 30 storey fat towers as long as the real estate boom continues to chug along. Perhaps in 40 years.

[TheHonestMaple]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

That photo does make me wonder what stats were used to determine the 4th densest downtown. It's certainly not built density. Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Ottawa, etc. have clearly more built density than this.

It shouldn't take long to fill the area in with 30 storey fat towers as long as the real estate boom continues to chug along. Perhaps in 40 years.

I think it's more the surrounding neighbourhoods in downtown that make the density. St. Clair, Durand, Kirkendall, etc. Cities like Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg do not have that at all.

[TheRitsman]

Seems like some cladding might be going up? Unsure how they're connecting it to the building but this looks to me to be able to hold cladding materials:



Cinder block being installed for parking garage. I suspect like Platinum they want the garage done quickly so workers can park onsite.

[TheHonestMaple]

Taken October 23, 2022.

[urban_planner]

They added some more height to the crane here today.

[johnnyhamont]

This is over halfway done now. I think I counted 16/30 floors in place as of this weekend.

[Innsertnamehere]

they have more built density in terms of employment buildings but Hamilton has more apartments, generally. Hamilton has very little office space downtown for a city of it's size.

[mikevbar1]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

they have more built density in terms of employment buildings but Hamilton has more apartments, generally. Hamilton has very little office space downtown for a city of it's size.

Approximately 127% less than it would if it were not so close to Toronto, according to a report from Metrolinx I perused a couple of weeks ago.

Edit: Small tangent coming in. There are two factors affecting the apparent size and nature of downtown, and they are both being touched upon in this thread. First is the historic age and relative size of Hamilton; it was one of the largest cities in Canada and was set to continue to grow at a steady rate until about 40-50 years ago. Hence, "old" Hamilton (most of the lower city) is fitting for a city much larger than what we see today. If we compare the proportion of the 'old' parts of Toronto, Ottawa, and perhaps K-W, the proportion of post-war growth significantly exceeds the relative proportion of prewar expanse seen here. Our downtown is comparable to many cities with 1M+ metro populations, ala Ottawa, Buffalo, Rochester or Syracuse NY to name a few. It is a huge asset of ours that we can grow into a city that feels significantly larger than it might actually be. This brings me to the second point, that growth was significantly curbed in the post-war period via industrial decline. I think this is obvious, but begs the question of how large Hamilton could have been, and could eventually be.

A bonus factor that has been everpresent since the early 1900s has been the centralization of employment (primarily finance) in Toronto, which won out around that time. This is probably the largest element determining the lack of office demand in Hamilton; it is treated as a peripheral region to Toronto, not a place competing with it. It is very hard imo to justify offices moving here when offices are already moving out of Toronto and GTA suburbs (Scarborough, Etobicoke, Mississauga, etc) to downtown Toronto. If these places closer to the regional center of gravity cannot attract or hold office tenants, why could Hamilton?

These three ideas illustrate the greater economic factors that Hamilton has been at the whim of for over a century. Our regional context is both a blessing and a curse; we are not economically doomed like other rustbelt cities, but we are going to have to embrace being apart of a greater whole to see economic success going forward. Most development downtown is indicative of this.

[TheHonestMaple]

Originally Posted by mikevbar1

Approximately 127% less than it would if it were not so close to Toronto, according to a report from Metrolinx I perused a couple of weeks ago.

That's interesting because London Ontario, although smaller but somewhat similar to Hamilton, also has a downtown core with almost no office buildings.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by TheHonestMaple

That's interesting because London Ontario, although smaller but somewhat similar to Hamilton, also has a downtown core with almost no office buildings.

The London CMA is about half the size of Hamilton though. London has 4.7 million sf of office space in it's downtown apparently, vs. about 5.2 million in Hamilton.

Which generally lines up with the "missing" office space a city Hamilton's size should have. If Toronto wasn't pulling regional employment it's way, Hamilton should theoretically have closer to 10 million square feet of office space downtown.

Winnipeg, with roughly the same CMA size, has 12 million SF of office space downtown, for comparison. Instead a lot of that office space is pulled to suburban offices along the QEW in Burlington and to downtown Toronto itself.

I would love downtown Hamilton's office market to improve, but it'll be slow going. There is still substantial vacancies downtown in many of the major office blocks around. There are a handful of small office projects, primarily conversions of old warehouses, which should a few hundered thousand sf of space to the wider core in the next few years, but nothing major.

[mikevbar1]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

I would love downtown Hamilton's office market to improve, but it'll be slow going. There is still substantial vacancies downtown in many of the major office blocks around. There are a handful of small office projects, primarily conversions of old warehouses, which should a few hundered thousand sf of space to the wider core in the next few years, but nothing major.

I believe that the expansion of our two primary employment areas will accelerate this. I can see the city wanting all the new businesses (and the adjacent businesses to serve those) to locate their offices downtown rather than by the airport or in the north end.

[mikevbar1]

Originally Posted by TheHonestMaple

That's interesting because London Ontario, although smaller but somewhat similar to Hamilton, also has a downtown core with almost no office buildings.

Curious. I'll try and find the report so I can see if there's anything about London or other Canadian cities. I remembered Hamilton mostly because it was by far the most dramatic number I saw.

Well, It's not -127%! I might be misinterpreting this statistic actually. Here's a screenshot and link to the paper though: https://www.metrolinx.com/en/regiona...8_revMAY22.pdf

[Canuck905]

They've installed a few of the bottom pieces of the 'gold' components.

[Canuck905]

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

[TheRitsman]

The victorian neighbourhoods surrounding downtown and filling much of the lower city are incredibly dense by today's standards. Studies have shown that the pre-war "suburbs" surrounding downtown Toronto are at least 3 times as dense with population compared to newer suburbs of the GTA.

[TheHonestMaple]

Originally Posted by TheRitsman

The victorian neighbourhoods surrounding downtown and filling much of the lower city are incredibly dense by today's standards. Studies have shown that the pre-war "suburbs" surrounding downtown Toronto are at least 3 times as dense with population compared to newer suburbs of the GTA.

This. Literally only Toronto, Hamilton and maybe Ottawa in Ontario have sizable old victorian neighbourhoods.

[Innsertnamehere]

the Ontario side of Ottawa didn't pass the Hamilton CMA size until 1982, for comparison. Pre-war, Hamilton was a larger city, which explains the larger "old city" bones. Similarly, the Hamilton CMA was larger than the Calgary CMA until 1979.

Remember that between 1980 and 2010 or so, most Canadian cities built very, very little new residential units in their downtowns as well. Ottawa and Calgary have likely done a lot of catching up to Hamilton in the last decade, but now Hamilton seems poised to go on an absolute boom of apartment construction in the core to fend them off.

Canada as a whole also generally has quite small pre-war bones. Toronto didn't pass Buffalo in population until 1951!

[TheRitsman]

Working on the 17th floor today, and have a bit more green weather sheathing on the exterior. At this rate we'll likely see this top out sometime in February.