Quote:
Originally Posted by sailor734
I'm really quite excited about the potential of what a Lafford project in SJ would look like.
Does anyone know the size of the Vulcan St. property? Is it suitable for a pair of buildings?
The post from the Lafford exec with the reference to the Gateway Towers in Moncton would seem to suggest it is.
The fact that the Landmark site is actively being marketed raises interesting possibilities.
Wouldn't a SJ version of Moncton's Three Sisters/Gateway Towers build be something? The water views from the higher floors would be commanding from Cape Spencer to Nova Scotia to Coleson Cove
If Lafford's speed shown in Moncton held here he could theoretically have two buildings up before Fundy Quay was fully complete
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Look how long it’s taken them to build this first 6 storey building. I understand the property wasn’t typical and there’s been many millions spent by the government to make it ready for development, but look at when the thread on Fundy Quay was first started… 2013. Things shouldn’t happen this slowly, no matter how old of a city SJ is, or how challenging harbour front development can be.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Lafford completed two towers before serious work even begins on the two tallest Fundy Quay buildings. I think the FHG will be begging for more funding and low cost government financing before they get serious building the two tallest towers.
I wonder how much they could shake down the government for a measly 100 affordable units across the three main high rises. To me these kind of arrangements really don’t make sense in the long term, and are, at best, a short term, band-aid solution.
Instead, the government should be fully funding affordable buildings full of affordable, desirable units that will be publicly owned and built by private construction companies. The province could fully fund a few 15-20 storey buildings with affordable rents across the Uptown that could look a lot nicer than 99 King, and also support policies that spur on private infill developments across our cities, and especially in our urban cores, like Uptown Saint John.
Imagine what the province could build at Agar place if they tore that banal monstrosity down and moved those government offices to Brunswick Square Office Tower?
Wayne Long likes to say Uptown Saint John has the most potential for harbour front developments in Canada, and I tend to agree with him, but why hasn’t he done more to push for bigger developments projects and big remediation projects across the harbour front and across Uptown Saint John? Sure, be deserves some credit for the foundational work at the Fundy Quay site and Itoli-Makahamak, but it also seems a lot of that was in motion for a long time before he even came into office. He’s in a more influential position than ever before in government, yet he’s mostly just taking photo ops in front of longstanding projects like Fundy Quay and 99 King, which are private projects.
If our local politicians (Housing Minister David Hickey included) like taking photo ops in front of projects so much… why don’t they fight harder for some bigger publicly funded residential development projects here in Saint John? It especially bugs me that they aren’t thinking bigger than ever, now that Mr. Build, Baby, Build, Mark Carney is the PM, and they have all the support in the world for big, ambitious, costly projects to solve problems like the housing crisis.
The sugar refinery site alone has enough room for multiple high rises, and would be a sustainable long term investment for all three levels of government to step up to pay the costs to remediate the site, reclaim land, and build a sea wall even bigger and better than the one at Fundy Quay.
Government should at least explore the long term costs, and how much earth would be moved to construct a road tunnel and train tunnel between the central peninsula and west side docks, as that much earth could be useful in land reclamation projects on both side of the Harbour. The cost of tunnels should be explored by serious geo engineering professionals and other experts before they’re written off as too expensive. Tunneling technology has come a long, long way and it’s never been cheaper to build a tunnel thanks to modern advancements. I’ve seen people on here try and claim a few tunnels would cost into billions between the West Side and Uptown, but with no evidence to back these cost claims up.
The benefit of having a traffic/ pedestrian tunnel between the west side and uptown for residents is worth more than a billion over the next century, imo, and I’m not even convinced it would cost $1 billion or more to construct such a tunnel. Moreover, there could be huge industrial benefits for the port to have rail tunnels below the west side docks and lower cove term/potash terminals. If its all all feasible to do tunnels + land reclamation projects, instead of just land reclamation projects, it would be well worth the investment in Canada’s oldest port city.
If Wayne Long and Mark Carney truly wants to turn Saint John into the finest port city in the G7, a Saint John Harbour Tunnel would be a distinct possibility not something to scoff at. Likewise, getting rid of the seaside scrap yard (AIM), remediating/reclaiming the sugar refinery site for development, expanding the footprint of the inner harbour, and should be pressing priorities for Canada’s (and NB’s) “new” Liberal governments.
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