Winnipeg | UofM | Southwood Circle

[WildCake]

Originally Posted by FactaNV

I think the utility and road construction is proceeding apace.

Yea I drove by the other day and it seemed to be humming along quite well. My gut feeling about this project is that once the first tower is in, it'll spur the rest of the development.

I'm looking forward to this project and I hope the U of M team holds strong to its standards. I'm sure they're bound to it to some extent given the neighbourhood plan they got done through the city, although I guess that can be amended.

I don't want it to look like what's going on in the Refinery District. Yes, there's a lot of multifamily, but there must be such low land costs that all these 4-6 story buildings developers are getting away with surface lots to cover their 1.5 spot/dwelling quota and it just feels so sparse and like a giant expanses of parking lots, rather than a dense TOD neighbourhood it was originally touted to be. Maybe it isn't quite built up to that point yet but that was my feeling driving through there.

[bomberjet]

IIRC, now that I've had lunch, there were a couple other proposals here in the works.

[ColdRain&Snow]

Originally Posted by WildCake

Yea I drove by the other day and it seemed to be humming along quite well. My gut feeling about this project is that once the first tower is in, it'll spur the rest of the development.

I'm looking forward to this project and I hope the U of M team holds strong to its standards. I'm sure they're bound to it to some extent given the neighbourhood plan they got done through the city, although I guess that can be amended.

I don't want it to look like what's going on in the Refinery District. Yes, there's a lot of multifamily, but there must be such low land costs that all these 4-6 story buildings developers are getting away with surface lots to cover their 1.5 spot/dwelling quota and it just feels so sparse and like a giant expanses of parking lots, rather than a dense TOD neighbourhood it was originally touted to be. Maybe it isn't quite built up to that point yet but that was my feeling driving through there.

The Refinery District (aka Bishop Heights) is definitely suburban in character. It's honestly really disappointing seeing the huge parking lots and barren roads going in right next to a Rapid Transit station. The development could have been so much nicer. The reality is that the large, non-local developers for that neighbourhood know that they can make a good profit off the suburban style development, so no reason to try something new. It's not worth their time to fight with the City over parking minimums, minimum-setbacks, etc. It takes a committed developer and architect to fight the City and make high-quality urban developments happen. Just look at all the challengers TrueViking just faced with his 6-story building going in on Marion St.

With all that being said, we're in the middle of a housing crisis so I'm still glad that multi-family buildings near Rapid Transit are getting built. But the development could have been so much better. Thankfully Southwood Circle is looking more promising.