Developer behind Pigott conversion working on new Hamilton condo project
Vernon Shaw’s Harbour Condos on the Bay are proposed for MacNab Street
https://www.thespec.com/news-story/8...condo-project/
When Vernon Shaw came to town in 1996 to convert Hamilton's historic Pigott Building into condos, the city's downtown was a different place.
"Twenty years ago it was not that common to live downtown, but everybody who bought there or moved there wanted to be part of that lively downtown scene," the Canlight Group founder said about the residence at the corner of Main and James streets. "It was really just starting to emerge at that time."
Shaw sees his latest Hamilton project — Harbour Condos on the Bay — as helping to transform a different area of the city at a similar time in its development.
"I think the waterfront will become that in time," he told The Spectator.
Shaw's proposed 11-storey, 76-unit condominium development at MacNab Street North and Stuart Street — his first project in Hamilton since the Pigott Building — comes at a time when the city's waterfront is undergoing a massive redevelopment.
The city's long-planned $140-million revitalization will transform the west harbour to include a housing and commercial development, as well as Pier 8 Promenade Park.
Harbour Condos on the Bay is a new development, but Shaw said he can still employ lessons learned from his work on the historic Pigott Building.
"We didn't have to create an identity for it," Shaw said about his past Hamilton project. "It already had an identity."
"It was like a magnet, it drew people," he added. "They wanted to feel proud to say that they lived there."
While the Pigott tower was already a "landmark" when he turned it into a condo project, he has the same ambitions for his latest Hamilton work.
"Everybody knows this is an area in transition, and I think it will become one of the most desirable locations in the city," he said about the waterfront. "We want to develop a project that becomes a landmark."
Shaw said he and his partners on the project — Hunter Milborne of Milborne Group and Gary Silver of Norstar — have been speaking with the city to help them create a building with a design and size that fits in with the local community, including nearby Custom House, which is now home to the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre.
He said they hope to appear before the city's planning committee and have their approvals by the end of this year.
Milborne, whose company will handle selling the units, is originally from Hamilton but left at 18 to go to university in Toronto.
His father owned a picture framing store and gift shop called Milborne Framers that was located on King Street East in the International Village. The store later moved to MacNab Street before being expropriated as part of the Hamilton City Centre development, Milborne said.
It's an interesting and exciting time to be back in the city, which has transformed from an industry town to include a burgeoning arts scene in the many years he's been gone, he said.
"It's like a full circle thing."
The Harbour Condos project includes units slightly larger than some other local condominium developments (as many as 1,100 square feet) to appeal to a broader group of people, as well as space for a first-floor coffee shop as a way to help build community within the building and neighbourhood as a whole, Shaw said.
Despite the condo development being built across the street from the West Harbour GO Station at a time when many Torontonians are moving to the city, Shaw said they've never considered Hamilton to be a bedroom community.
"Hamilton is a city — it's not a suburb," he said. "It has a unique identity."
"We're not really aiming this at Toronto," he added. "We're aiming it at how we see the demographics in Hamilton."
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