Harry Stinson on downtown Hamilton

[realcity]

they'll call it a Taj Mahal.... haha.. that's what everyone says in Hamilton who wants to poopoo a nice building.

Have we beat ourselves up so much that we can't even imagine great things happening in Hamilton anymore? Not just baby shit steps (Staybridge, Cityview Terraces etc) because at that paces, Brantford will over step us in 20 years. It's time for a MEGA PROJECT it's worked in other cities. We deserve it. If someone says "it's too tall" ask them "Too tall for what?"

[RePinion]

^^^^ Windows on King ain't bad ... used to go there all the time. I got tired of it though: mediocre service, stale old furnishings/decor and a boring view.

I've been hanging out on Duke lately - close to home, a little classier than Hess, and usually some good conversation from regulars and random strangers.

I'd prefer something more urban and martini-barish though - which is exactly what I'd expect from Stinson if he does anything like the Dominion Club at the Connaught.

[realcity]

Originally Posted by raisethehammer

Action News??? Is that what they're calling it now?
oh brother....

Action NEws? who CHCH. give me a break. All that hype in the Fall when the changed over to E was bullcrap. they didn't improve the news at all, if anything its the worst its ever been. When is CBC radio coming?

[DC83]

Originally Posted by raisethehammer

Action News??? Is that what they're calling it now?
oh brother....

hahaha no no no, sorry. I was just making fun of the station since turning over to E! they seemed to have adopted the American-Style "Action News" model (especially with their useless chopper).

Sorry for any confusion! haha

[SteelTown]

The Spec got Terry Cooke to support Stinson......

Let's give Harry Stinson a chance

February 29, 2008
Terry Cooke
The Hamilton Spectator

Maybe it takes somebody from out of town to dream big dreams and imagine a brighter future for downtown Hamilton. Too many locals seem to have given up. They've heard hucksters unveil plans for one grand redevelopment after another only to vanish into the night. But for the first time in a long while, something real seems to be starting and Harry Stinson is determined to be a big part of it.

Stinson has been called Toronto's answer to Donald Trump. The daring developer has soared on occasion, but he's also been known to crash and burn. His 35-year business career in Toronto began when Stinson opened the legendary Groaning Board Restaurant as a teenager, and ended with a lively lawsuit with David Mirvish over control of a luxury condo/hotel that they built together at 1 King St. West (at the corner of Yonge Street).

Stinson has now landed firmly in Hamilton with his partner, Linda Panning, and their seven-year-old daughter. They've purchased a nice home on fashionable Bull's Lane with a magnificent escarpment view of downtown Hamilton. And after circling his prey for a couple of months, Stinson's done his first big deal here.

He's just inked a $9.5-million contract to purchase the former Royal Connaught Hotel site. The agreement was secured with a $100,000 deposit and provides a 30-day conditional period for Stinson to secure financing. Stinson has conducted extensive discussions with potential private investors and is confident he will be able to raise the cash necessary to close the deal.

The current owners of the building insist that they are proceeding to secure refinancing and remain confident that if Stinson is unable to close within 30 days they will be in a position to start construction shortly thereafter. Tony Battaglia, on behalf of the current ownership group, describes Stinson proposal as "highly speculative."

Toronto architect Drew Hauser of the firm Stanford Downey has been retained to design the project along with Hamilton architect John Mokrycke. Hauser has worked with Stinson before on several successful projects in Toronto and calls him "a true visionary."

The Stinson concept includes restoration of and a substantial addition to the existing Connaught building to include a 100-room boutique luxury hotel and approximately 200 compact one- and two-bedroom multi-use condominiums. Stinson's grand vision ultimately culminates with a new 70- to 80-storey condominium tower with a commercial gallery designed to be an architectural signature piece for downtown.

The total project will be more than a million square feet of construction with the cost likely exceeding $300 million. The City of Hamilton's Gord Moodie confirms that the project will be eligible for about $3.5 million in municipal grants and loans as well as discounted property taxes for five years.

Politically there is no lack of enthusiasm for the promise Stinson brings to a site that has sat empty in the heart of Hamilton providing nothing so much as a symbol of despair. Mayor Fred Eisenberger and downtown Councillor Bob Bratina have provided encouragement for Stinson to think big about the potential of the property.

Local cynics will be scoffing at the notion of Stinson pulling it off. But none of that skepticism is new to Stinson. When he pioneered the loft-condo concept on a seedy stretch of Queen Street West near the mental hospital in Toronto in the early 1990s, the established players in the Toronto real estate market laughed. They only stopped laughing when he pre-sold 80 per cent of the condo units in that development (known as the Candy Factory) at premium prices.

Maybe it's time we got over our snake-bitten reluctance to get our hopes up about the future of downtown. But it would require a whole new attitude about what is possible. I am not suggesting that we act as cheerleaders for every hare-brained proposal that comes down the pike. Nor should we let the city off the hook for failing to do the hard work necessary in the past to create a better climate for business downtown.

But we should give both hope and Harry Stinson a chance.

Baseball is often the source of great insight. When the 1969 Mets went from last place to World Series champions in a single miraculous season, it was in part because of an unshakable sense of optimism (having both Nolan Ryan and Tom Seaver in the pitching rotation helped, too). Their motto, which we should be appropriate for Hamilton, was simply, "Ya gotta believe."

[RePinion]

^ Nice piece. One of the better things I've read in the spec in a while.

[realcity]

yes that's a good attitude from Cooke. I actually believe he likes Hamilton now. Too bad his gang of friends let this city stagnate for 30 years on their watch.

[raisethehammer]

yea, it's kind of surprising. 2 great pieces from Cooke in 2 weeks.
I'll take it.

[Jon Dalton]

This is truly exciting stuff for someone who lives downtown.

Originally Posted by SteelTown

The Spec got Terry Cooke to support Stinson......
...
Stinson's grand vision ultimately culminates with a new 70- to 80-storey condominium tower with a commercial gallery designed to be an architectural signature piece for downtown.
...

Did you hear that, BC Ted?

[realcity]

BC Ted has left the building. We won't hear from him again unless this development fails to materialize. This is exactly what Hamilton needs to shut up the bad attitudes and naysayers. It's like how every movie needs a 'bad guy' someone for the audience to hate, someone whom they can compare themselves to and feel good about themself. Hamilton has been Canada's 'bad guy' for decades, a city for every other city to compare themselves to and feel like they are superior. They won't be able to shit on Hamilton anymore if/when this gets built.

[RePinion]

I agree with you realcity. I think Hamilton, and to a lesser extent Winnipeg, get an unfairly bad rap from the citizens of supposedly superior cities who are covering the failings of their own hometowns.

Hamilton has not always been the butt of jokes. There was a time when the city was one of the most prosperous to be found, home to some of the largest companies in the country, a place which attracted real talent and offered a high standard of authentically urban living. But then Hamilton's fortunes began to decline ... and Toronto's began to rise. Torontonians began to compare themselves favourably to Hamiltonians, in an effort to distance themselves from their more humble, provinicial past and to assert their new identity as cosmopolitan world-city dwellers. Toronto became the "centre of the universe", home to all the country's big banks, law firms, and major corporations (an honour previously held by Montreal), while Hamilton became the "armpit of Canada", a cesspool of declining manufacturing concerns and an increasingly indigent population. While Toronto built scores of expensive new office towers and then flashy glass-clad condos, Hamilton either built a few scrappy, sovietesque apartment blocks, a couple subpar office buildings, or nothing at all. The city took on an aura of stagnation. Jobs were leaving. The major companies were going under. All the growth was in the suburbs, and the suburbanites took pains to distinguish themselves from denizens of the city proper (and they still do). Then slowly, in the form of a murmur, things began to change. The city finally started to come to terms with the fact that there was no future in North American heavy manufacturing. Thankfully, as a legacy from all that industrial wealth, the city was endowed with a first rate university and an outstanding network of hospitals and medical research facilities. Finally, the city realized that it might have some other way to attract the talent that its mighty industries used to attract, and it might, as a corollary, be able to offer something like the high standard of urban living it used to. After all, the buildings, parks and density were still pretty much in place. The city had not suffered the sort of physical hollowing out that so many American cities, facing similar patterns of decline, had endured. The bones for a real city were still there, more or less. And now we're finally starting to fill them out with a little flesh. Stinson is a harbinger of better things to come. He may not stop the jokes but at least he sends a signal to us that we can come out of the shadow and begin to have a little pride in ourselves again. After all, most of always questioned why the city was mocked so mercilessly in the first place - our city was safe; our homes were reasonably priced and of higher architectural quality than just about anywhere else in the province; our parks and recreational facilities were great; our city government was never too corrupt; our quality of life in general was pretty high. It was inevitable that people from outside the city would eventually realize this. I hope they come here in droves. I hope they bring a lot of money and help us build the things we deserve but have never managed to build for ourselves (at least in a very long while).

[raisethehammer]

dang! that would make a great mayoral inauguration speech! very well said.
Of course, if Stinson falls flat on his face again he might simply add one more joke to the heap.
Anyone on here who is a Hamiltonian should be rooting for this guy to succeed and pull it off. If for no other reason than to shut up all the naysayers...most of whom live within our city borders. Maybe if the city gets humming again, they'll up and move to some other place they can crap all over and enjoy their misery. Good riddance deadbeats!!!

[LikeHamilton]

CHCH had a thing on Harry at 6. They checked on him and they say he is under personal bankrupt protection and owes $18 million. He told CHCH that his creditors know about this project and they are happy with it, as it is part of his payback.

[SteelTown]

^ and the thing was if you didn't read the Spec or check CHML and rely on CHCH at six for your news source you would be completely clueless about this project as CHCH at six still haven't covered the project yet. Yet you would know about Stinson's bankrupt protection and creditors supporting him on this project as a source of new revenue for him to pay off his lendors.

[RePinion]

^ That's a good sign I think as trustees in bankruptcy tend to be very conservative thinkers ... suggests that Stinson's got a solid business model on offer

[RePinion]

oh wait ... he's just in bankruptcy protection ... so scratch the comment about trustees ... creditors are quite a different animal

[fastcarsfreedom]

He is under personal bankruptcy protection as well as CCAA?

Cooke's piece was excellent--and I hope will quell some of the naysaying about The Spectator. I connect with the message about naysayers and negativity. RePinions piece is an interesting companion--but the truth is that it starts and ends in Hamilton with Hamiltonians. The people of the city are the worst offenders when it comes to running down the city--and I mean urban-dwellers, suburbanites and people in the surrounding areas. If the folks IN Hamilton are positive about the city--and believe in it--in the end it won't matter what someone in Winnipeg thinks. I remember flying through the airport in Pittsburgh several years ago--and everyone from ticket agents, to security to U.S. customs were absolutely positive and excited about their city--a city that for years was the butt of jokes itself. It starts and ends IN Hamilton--Toronto will always be right down the highway--that's never going to change. You can't change geography, but you sure as hell can change attitude.

[RePinion]

Originally Posted by fastcarsfreedom

He is under personal bankruptcy protection as well as CCAA?

Cooke's piece was excellent--and I hope will quell some of the naysaying about The Spectator. I connect with the message about naysayers and negativity. RePinions piece is an interesting companion--but the truth is that it starts and ends in Hamilton with Hamiltonians. The people of the city are the worst offenders when it comes to running down the city--and I mean urban-dwellers, suburbanites and people in the surrounding areas. If the folks IN Hamilton are positive about the city--and believe in it--in the end it won't matter what someone in Winnipeg thinks. I remember flying through the airport in Pittsburgh several years ago--and everyone from ticket agents, to security to U.S. customs were absolutely positive and excited about their city--a city that for years was the butt of jokes itself. It starts and ends IN Hamilton--Toronto will always be right down the highway--that's never going to change. You can't change geography, but you sure as hell can change attitude.

Great post.

I'm well aware that the biggest problem with attitude is right here in Hamilton. I certainly think our self-contempt is enforced by negative outside opinions, but it obviously goes deeper than that.

The problem is here. I think we have to start feeling a certain sense of pride and ambition once again. We have to start thinking of ourselves as a real city, with a specific identity and history. We have to take pleasure in things which are distinctively Hamiltonian and start to cultivate some notion of a Hamilton way of life.

We have always been something of an antidote to Toronto. Instead of being a negative, this fact now has some real potential to be a positive.

The change does have to start here but I think outsiders can bring a real vibrancy to the city and help to kick start a resurgence. They can see things which we've taken for granted for so long and bring a new appreciation to them. In turn, we will learn to appreciate them again.

There was a time when people took a certain pride in coming from this city, and when our businessmen and politicians were known for having a certain character and outlook. Even Scott Symons in Place d'Armes referred ironically to members of the "Hamilton aristocracy" and suggested that a real perceptible culture existed in this city quite different from that of Toronto or Montreal or wherever else.

I know that something like that distinctive culture can be resurrected. There should come a time in the future when you can tell someone you live and work in Hamilton without anticipating a slight snicker. Obviously it starts with ourselves, but I think we need help from outside too ... particularly from people who are fed up with the drudgery and phoniness which characterizes life in other cities in this province. These people will make a meaningful contribution to whatever the "Hamilton experience" comes to mean.

[fastcarsfreedom]

Well said RePinion. I moved and made my life elsewhere--the perspective I've gained as an outsider has made me appreciate all the intricacies that make Hamilton unique--it's old neighborhoods, it's industrious heritage it's unparalleled physical and geographic beauty.

What Hamilton had--and you see it walking around some of the old Southcentral city neighborhoods--was a very quiet classiness--not brash and loud, but subtle and rich. In fact, negative perceptions aside, much of that has remained steadfast--we just don't announce it to the world as much as we ought to.

[SteelTown]

Dethroned condo king Stinson makes play for Hamilton condo
Posted: February 29, 2008, 8:58 PM by Barry Hertz
Real estate

By Natalie Alcoba, National Post

Harry Stinson, Toronto’s dethroned “condo king,” has made a play for a downtown Hamilton landmark, hoping to restore it and build a new condo tower that could soar up to 80 floors.

Mr. Stinson, who recently moved to Hamilton after losing control of the 1 King West condo hotel in downtown Toronto, is prepared to pay $9.5-million for the Royal Connaught Hotel, which has been waiting empty, stripped of its interior contents, for a prospective buyer.

He said he has the money, but will take 30 days to make sure the building, which covers about one street block, is worth buying. The deal would close at the end of June, said Mr. Stinson, who filed for bankruptcy protection last year after a $12-million dispute over 1 King West with prominent theatre producer David Mirvish, who largely financed the project.

“I’m really picking myself up and starting all over here,” Mr. Stinson said of his work in Hamilton. Still, he said investors have not been hard to come by. “I’m not obviously happy with what happened in Toronto but I’m not walking away and forgetting. I’m keeping up my fight to vindicate myself on it, but I’m not doing it in the public eye.”

In the meantime, he is busy trying to convince Hamilton officials to let him build an 80-storey condo tower.

“Their eyebrows rose a little bit when I showed them a drawing, but that’s the whole idea here. This is going to have to be something that is really striking and is actually so outrageous that in itself becomes self fulfilling,” Mr. Stinson said.

“Our objective is to go tall. Can we get 80 storeys? I have no idea. That is what we are going to start with. We are going to try to make it a building they will find appealing, because their objective is really to galvanize that whole downtown core.”

The sleek condo tower is the second phase of a development project that will start with retrofitting the existing Connaught, circa 1916, into a combination boutique hotel and residences. The first four floors will house a refurbished ballroom, plus about 100 hotel suites, while “compact” condo units similar to those found at 1 King West will take up the remaining 10 floors.

Mr. Stinson said it could be up and running by Christmas 2009, but did not have a timeline for the construction of the adjacent tower. The hotel units will start at about $130,000; condos in the tower will range from $300,000 to $1-million, Mr. Stinson said.


Rendering of Stinson's proposed 80-storey condo tower by Stanford Downey Architects Inc.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs...inson-makes-play-for-hamilton-condo.aspx