Downtown Update

[mattgrande]

Originally Posted by Dwils01

I seen that yesterday and looks like they are on the ground floor. Had a picture of a rendering which just look liked big townhouses.
Also there is a development notice at Young and Walnut to build townhouses there where the corner store is which looks closed now.

Young and Walnut are the "Corktown Towns." See here: http://www.corktowns.ca/

[SteelTown]

What does downtown Hamilton need less of?

http://www.cbc.ca/hamilton/news/story/2013/07/08/hamilton-5-things-downtown-needs-less-of.html

Lane Capacity
Income segregation in the housing market
Payday loan/cheque cashing stores
Buildings knocked down without plans
Absentee landlords
Negativity

[HillStreetBlues]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

What does downtown Hamilton need less of?

Income segregation in the housing market

From the article:

Sara Mayo from the Social Planning and Research Council told CBC Hamilton that as more people move into downtown Hamilton and housing prices rise, affordable housing needs to be at the forefront of people's minds.

"We have to make sure to avoid income segregation whereby only the most affluent families can live in Hamilton's most central and walkable neighbourhoods,” Mayo said.


I know that it's this commentator's mandate to promote affordable housing and similar issues, but this is wrong. Housing (both prices and rents) are generally very low in this city. Very few central neighbourhoods (in fact, Kirkendall and where else?) are gentrifying at any speed. We are a long way from having to be concerned about a lack of affordable housing. And I really question whether doing so will even have a repellant effect on the types of people who are not now living in great numbers in the core, and who would add a lot if they did.

[flar]

I can't believe payday loans is leading that poll

Things like that are a symptom, fix the other things and they'll disappear.

[movingtohamilton]

At last! The mainstream media spotlight shines on the legal loansharks in Hamilton.

http://www.cbc.ca/hamilton/talk/story/2013/07/10/hamilton-payday.html

[arch100]

New 200-seat Italian restaurant proposed for 229 James St N. This building has been recently renovated on the exterior (new windows, stucco cladding, etc.). Was formerly Central Billiards.

For The Record

New life proposed for James North building


Sheri Crawford of SLC Designs will be appearing at the committee of adjustment on July 18 to ask for an exception to the parking bylaw for a client who wants to turn a tired James Street North building into a 200-seat Italian restaurant.

Crawford said the client, who is not named in the application, has just closed an Italian eatery on the Mountain and is hopeful the committee will allow him to renovate 229 James St. N., a former billiards hall, into a multistorey restaurant.

"It's a huge space," said Crawford. "It really matches the vision of James Street North."

Crawford will be asking the committee to allow her client to have two instead of 19 spaces. She said she will be pointing out there are two large municipal parking lots available, one just to the rear of the building.


The Loft opening at Lime Ridge


The Loft has announced it is opening a store at Lime Ridge Mall on Friday.

The American women's clothing retailer is just one of many stores opening new or renovated spaces as the mall undergoes a $28-million redevelopment.


The Hamilton Spectator

[movingtohamilton]

The restauranteur is requesting less parking? That's excellent news!

[Jon Dalton]

I got a copy of the zoning application in the mail as I suppose everyone in the area did. It includes a site plan which shows clearly there is only room on the lot for 2 cars, the rest is built on. It's ridiculous that they even need to ask for this variance. You could not fit 17 cars on the lot if the whole building was demolished.

[drpgq]

I saw that Coffee Culture on King by John beside the Pizza Pizza has hiring signs up. That took forever.

[thistleclub]

Sinkhole causes chaos in core
(Hamilton Spectator, Stacey Escott, July 13 2013)

Downtown commuters have been battling another foe along King Street this past month and no one seemed to know who their new opponent was until now. It's a sinkhole.

The hole at the intersection of King and Caroline streets has been adding to the construction chaos that already exists in the city's core, making rush hour even more challenging.

About a month ago, city officials were notified of the hole and had to conduct their own investigation, a normal procedure to find out where the soil is going. They discovered there was a failure of a communications conduit, and are waiting for an outside source to come in and assess the situation.

"We've been in communication with Bell, who is responsible for the conduit — we've had to call their subcontractor on a number of occasions," said Bert Posedowski, manager of water distribution and waste-water collection.

Posedowski says Bell has been slow to respond as they are a big company. They haven't been on-site yet, but sometime next week Bell will excavate to find out what the problem is and fix the hole so drivers can have the centre lane back.

With the construction on Caroline Street and the new buildings going up in the area, the timing couldn't be worse.

"Unfortunately we don't have control of when infrastructure fails — neither does Bell," Posedowski said.

Andrew Little owns Cottage 13, a tattoo shop near the intersection. He questions any talk of a future LRT line when what looked to be a manhole cover stays untouched for weeks.

[matt602]

Construction chaos... where do they come up with this —? I've been commuting along King from Ottawa to downtown for the past 2 weeks every day and have noticed only a very slight difference in scheduling. Even while they had King down to one lane between Ottawa and the Delta, it only took a few extra minutes to get through and once we did, we were zooming all the way to Wentworth.

[Dr Awesomesauce]

^Gotta feed the beast, man. The Spec knows which side its bread is buttered.

[mattgrande]

Yep, I drive past it every day. There's barely a slowdown, often traffic moves fine. Hardly "traffic chaos."

[CaptainKirk]

Originally Posted by mattgrande

Yep, I drive past it every day. There's barely a slowdown, often traffic moves fine. Hardly "traffic chaos."

Yeah me too, even at times when the Delta was bottlenecked down to one lane, it took me 3 minutes to get through during rush hour (more than once) I timed it.

And getting across to downtown was still quick and easy, No traffic jams.

[drpgq]

Construction at Catherine and Young

Source me
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BQSZFeeCQAA2gKN.jpg

[Dr Awesomesauce]

^Is it townhouses?

[LikeHamilton]

According to an article in “YourHamiltonBiz.com” on 29 July, 15 new businesses have opened on a 4-block stretch of James north from King William and Barton in the past 7 months.

There are four galleries and six restaurants amongst the new businesses opening up. Restaurants’ that are still in the works are “My Micha-Chur” (3 months), A Croatian Grill (within a month) and “Burnt Tongue”, a soup and sandwich place (In a few months).

Morgenstern’s at 244 James North is opening a Portuguese style charcoal grilled chicken restaurant called “Charred”. It will have 22 seats and they have just taken delivery of two special, $200,000 BBQ’s. They can cook 24 chickens every 24 minutes on each BBQ.
They hope to have it open by the August 9th Art Crawl. This seems to be the theme for the businesses on James North. They are working to get ready for the Art Crawls and especially the Super Crawl September 13 & 14th.

[urban_planner]

I know in the thread on the building at James and Vine. I hope that the crane they want to put up there is up in time for super crawl just so that people coming around will really get a sense that change is coming to downtown!

[CaptainKirk]

Originally Posted by pEte fiSt iN Ur fAce

^Is it townhouses?

IMG_20130730_143412[1] by Kozijak, on Flickr


IMG_20130730_143429[1] by Kozijak, on Flickr


IMG_20130730_143528[1] by Kozijak, on Flickr

[SteelTown]

The Corned Beef Hut, 174 King St West, seems to be doing well..

http://yourhamiltonbiz.com/montreal-smoked-meat-comes-to-hamilton?issue=2013-07-31