Future Canadian Skylines

[JHikka]

So much future growth and yet so much space for so much more.

[koops65]

A view of downtown from Yonge/Dundas 150 metres up:

• Video Link

Yorkville:

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Bloor/Dufferin:

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401 Bay Street:

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[TorontoDrew]

A new render from Waterfront T.O

[WhipperSnapper]

Aren't the bridges red?

[ericmacm]

Happy 2022, everyone! I'm back again with an update to 3 of my skylines - Halifax, Kitchener, and Kelowna. All three have been filled out with more tower developments and have been updated with the new watermarking system. In Kitchener, I have added in the Cambridge developments, as well as the Metz and other newer proposals. In Halifax, I have added significantly more towers, but have still left out some larger developments (mainly King's Wharf and Bedford Waterfront) for now, as I would prefer to wait for the imagery to update a bit and the plans to become a bit more clear. In Kelowna, I have added a couple of new developments and have revised some of the massings.

Moving forward, I am going to be addressing Burlington, Barrie, and Mississauga.

Halifax, NS:

Total # of new towers in skyline: 58

Halifax V2-1 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

Halifax V2-2 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

Halifax V2-3 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

Halifax V2-4 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

Halifax V2-5 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

Halifax V2-6 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

Halifax V2-7 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge, ON:

Total # of new towers in skyline: 125

KWC V2-1 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

KWC V2-2 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

KWC V2-3 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

KWC V2-4 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

KWC V2-5 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

KWC V2-6 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

KWC V2-7 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

Kelowna, BC:

Total # of new towers in skyline: 39

Kelowna V4-1 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

Kelowna V4-2 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

Kelowna V4-3 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

Kelowna V4-4 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

Kelowna V4-5 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

Kelowna V4-6 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

[JHikka]

Thanks for the post and renders Eric.

Really fun to see the difference in Kitchener's pin wheel-esque build compared to the grid that Kelowna is working with. Both, along with Halifax, are very well positioned heading into the future and show very good signs of future growth. Kitchener, perhaps for selfish reasons, has such a great upside and it's really exciting to see how it will all play out.

[MonctonRad]

Very impressive work.

Kelowna is definitely the rising star of western Canada.

[someone123]

These are great.

One thing I notice for Halifax is how old these proposals are now. Many of them are now under construction, and a big proportion would have been public even 5 years ago. The city is growing a lot but there haven't been a lot of new proposals made public, and I'm not sure there are any "ambitious" new proposals from the last few years that are beyond what might have been proposed in 2016. Halifax had a building over 30 storeys in 1970 and now the 2 tallest being built are about the same height, and as far as I know there's not much significantly taller than that (maybe 36 or so).

The municipality says their backlog of yet-to-be-approved stuff is something like 85,000 housing units. I wonder how many towers are a part of that. A lot of that will be boring multi-phase medium density greenfield development with a mix of lowrise apartments, townhouses, and a few detached houses.

Another factor is that under the Centre Plan, large parts of the urban core are limited to lowrise. There are a lot of 8 storey buildings being built. I'm actually not sure if this is good for the city in the long run. There are a few areas where developers are leveling lots of character houses in order to build lowrise where it might be nicer to keep more old buildings and build the odd 30 storey tower.

[ericmacm]

Originally Posted by someone123

These are great.

One thing I notice for Halifax is how old these proposals are now. Many of them are now under construction, and a big proportion would have been public even 5 years ago. The city is growing a lot but there haven't been a lot of new proposals made public, and I'm not sure there are any "ambitious" new proposals from the last few years that are beyond what might have been proposed in 2016. Halifax had a building over 30 storeys in 1970 and now the 2 tallest being built are about the same height, and as far as I know there's not much significantly taller than that (maybe 36 or so).

The municipality says their backlog of yet-to-be-approved stuff is something like 85,000 housing units. I wonder how many towers are a part of that. A lot of that will be boring multi-phase medium density greenfield development with a mix of lowrise apartments, townhouses, and a few detached houses.

Another factor is that under the Centre Plan, large parts of the urban core are limited to lowrise. There are a lot of 8 storey buildings being built. I'm actually not sure if this is good for the city in the long run. There are a few areas where developers are leveling lots of character houses in order to build lowrise where it might be nicer to keep more old buildings and build the odd 30 storey tower.

I would agree with how unfortunate it is that most of the proposals are relatively old and are only now being built. I noticed this when I was looking up the info for each one. Another city I saw this on such a large scale was London, which is also now finally getting a significant amount of old proposals moving through.

It's unfortunately really easy to see how the clear inability of the municipality to reduce their gigantic (85,000 units is huge for a city like Halifax!) backlog, combined with the arbitrary lowrise height limit in large parts of the urban core, is contributing to a housing crisis now that so many people are moving to Halifax. I hope we eventually see a change since it will give me more interesting material to model, haha.

[Hali87]

I'd expect more detailed proposals for Cogswell, Shannon Park, and West End Mall coming soon, which are each multi-block, multi-tower brownfield developments. There's also quite a few buildings going up these days with much less notice in general (renderings, public attention) than what would have been normal in 2016.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Hali87

I'd expect more detailed proposals for Cogswell, Shannon Park, and West End Mall coming soon, which are each multi-block, multi-tower brownfield developments. There's also quite a few buildings going up these days with much less notice in general (renderings, public attention) than what would have been normal in 2016.

I guess part of it depends on where you want to put the cutoff between a "proposal" and larger scale conceptual plans. You could put the Cogswell massing into the visualizations above and it would be a big difference but we don't yet have concrete proposals from developers. What I was trying to get at was that I'm a bit surprised there was no "Queen's Marque of 2021" (or even Roy or Maple or Nova Centre).

The height limits around Cogswell rule out any exceptionally tall towers. Maybe the construction there could stand out in other ways.

The WEM plan is 15 towers up to 90 m so it would look pretty significant in these images. And from the perspective of adding to the housing supply a development like that would make a difference. I don't think the supply kept up around 2020-2021.

[zoomer]

Incredible work Ericmacm!!

The Kitchener growth is impressive, and the pattern as well - what’s behind both? Is the growth mainly related to the tech, health and sciences? And why is so much growth focused along strodes?

As for Kelowna, love the different perspectives, really cool. Most of the new buildings have above ground parkades, which you don’t see in Victoria or Vancouver, I think because of soil conditions - is that a legitimate reason in all these new towers? It will give Kelowna a more unique look; if they do it right, it could be great (tile mosaics, murals, coloured glass panels, etc, etc.), if they don’t it’ll be dead spaces and big blank walls. I’ve seen some good and some bad examples thus far.

As for Halifax, Someone123 I think you added an extra zero? The number of units submitted for approval is likely 8,500, not 85,000. Based on the 2016 census the average household size in Halifax was 2.3 people, which would equal enough new housing for 195,500 people. Nice to see a lot of new building still in the downtown area.

Finally - Ericmacm, maybe in 2023 you could do a future Victoria skyline? Likely to start this year is phase one of an all rental build downtown by Starlight, the first 2 buildings being 20 and 21, followed by 27, 28 and 32.

Mayfair Mall new owners (1.5 miles from downtown Victoria) are also working through a yet to be released proposal for high rise development. Also a couple new office buildings downtown, plus a lot of mid rise (not even sure that would be included in future renders) and current towers being built would make for an interesting update.

There is also a new updated proposal for the Roundhouse, with a shift from rentals to more condos, and proposed towers of 23, 26, 28, 30 and 32 storeys.

Although I wouldn’t want Victoria to start adding a bunch of 30 and 40 storey buildings, one or two strategically placed taller/signature towers would totally change the perception of the skyline similar to what has happened in Edmonton (of course on a smaller scale).



Source

[WhipperSnapper]

Kitchener has some large multi-phased proposals that define these "future" renderings. The high rise boom can be attributed to the large foreign student population, being much cheaper alternative for GTA investors and, a city very open to 30 plus storey towers along their new LRT line.

There's always a limit to how high a desirable neighbourhood's values increase before the surrounding neighbourhoods become more desirable.

[ericmacm]

Originally Posted by zoomer

Incredible work Ericmacm!!

Finally - Ericmacm, maybe in 2023 you could do a future Victoria skyline? Likely to start this year is phase one of an all rental build downtown by Starlight, the first 2 buildings being 20 and 21, followed by 27, 28 and 32.

Mayfair Mall new owners (1.5 miles from downtown Victoria) are also working through a yet to be released proposal for high rise development. Also a couple new office buildings downtown, plus a lot of mid rise (not even sure that would be included in future renders) and current towers being built would make for an interesting update.

There is also a new updated proposal for the Roundhouse, with a shift from rentals to more condos, and proposed towers of 23, 26, 28, 30 and 32 storeys.

Although I wouldn’t want Victoria to start adding a bunch of 30 and 40 storey buildings, one or two strategically placed taller/signature towers would totally change the perception of the skyline similar to what has happened in Edmonton (of course on a smaller scale)

Thanks!

As for doing a skyline for Victoria, I really do want to do it, but I'm unfortunately starting to get to the point where I'm being spread a bit thin with everything I have going on, plus it's been difficult lately for me to get to my hobbies. I also dig up and consolidate all of the development information (I track it all in a spreadsheet too) in addition to the modelling aspect to make sure I get as much coverage as possible, which takes additional time. Other cities I have been wanting to get to are Burnaby and Brampton, but I have been holding off on them for the sake of not being overwhelmed.

For Burlington, the major reason that I'm going to do it is because someone who knows the development scene dug up and consolidated all of the development information when they asked me to do it. The same is true to an extent for Kitchener. I'd more than welcome this kind of arrangement for additional skylines if anyone is interested.

[LFC]

Originally Posted by zoomer

As for Kelowna, love the different perspectives, really cool. Most of the new buildings have above ground parkades, which you don’t see in Victoria or Vancouver, I think because of soil conditions - is that a legitimate reason in all these new towers? It will give Kelowna a more unique look; if they do it right, it could be great (tile mosaics, murals, coloured glass panels, etc, etc.), if they don’t it’ll be dead spaces and big blank walls. I’ve seen some good and some bad examples thus far.

That is correct, the low lying area along Lake Okanagan where downtown is located is a alluvial fan, so its quite silty with a shallow water table - which can vary in depths in the late Spring, on some of the projects Ive been apart of, Ive seen it only about 6' deep.

So yes, majority (but not all) of our towers are built on parking podiums.

All of the current and upcoming projects have some very aesthetically appealing podium designs.

Some examples of Podiums on our upcoming projects:

[WhipperSnapper]

I understand Burnaby. Brampton? I'm genuinely wondering if I'm missing something.

[905er]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

I understand Burnaby. Brampton? I'm genuinely wondering if I'm missing something.

Brampton currenly has 4 new towers that are near completion in the downtown core (between 28-35 stories tall) and several more 40+ story towers proposed for the immediate area. So, yes, you're missing something. It's growing up too..

[WhipperSnapper]

The scale and design of these parking podiums makes for a banal streetscape. Don't see why some of the frontages couldn't be hidden behind commercial condominiums.

Underground parking was unheard of in Richmond. Now, every development has one or two levels of underground parking. (unfortunately, often in tandem with above ground parking since the minimum parking standards are ridiculous)

[LFC]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

The scale and design of these parking podiums makes for a banal streetscape. Don't see why some of the frontages couldn't be hidden behind commercial condominiums.

Underground parking was unheard of in Richmond. Now, every development has one or two levels of underground parking. (unfortunately, often in tandem with above ground parking since the minimum parking standards are ridiculous)

I do agree in the sense it creates a large massing frontage along the streetscape, but developers are getting more creative with incorporating architectural facades, false window glazing to mimic levels of living/commercial spaces etc.

One Water development by Kerhkoff has done a nice job of incorporating street front shops into their podium design.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by 905er

Brampton currenly has 4 new towers that are near completion in the downtown core (between 28-35 stories tall) and several more 40+ story towers proposed for the immediate area. So, yes, you're missing something. It's growing up too..

Where did I say it's not building up?

I don't know the extent of downtown Brampton's boundaries. To say 4 towers are in the downtown "core" is inferring that they are all close to one another. They are not. Also, this thread put emphasis on 3D development maps over imaging probable near future skylines. In other words, proposals are just as important as under construction. I haven't seen anything in Brampton that comes close to the scale and clustering of proposals as in any number of 905 suburbs. (much of it is not in the SSP Database)