Claridge Royale [245 Rideau St] | 62/84/84m | 18/26/27f | U/C

[c_speed3108]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

No, the LCBO is further down the block towards the lower-right corner of this image. In this view we are at the corner of Cumberland St. (to the left) and Rideau St (to the right) facing roughly northeast.

Ah yes. You are right. Just gave street view a look.

[c_speed3108]

Ok so lets play how to fix this - reasonably.


The three towers should be different heights. Thinking something like 24, 28, 32. Same number of units - just looks a bit more interesting. Rendering doesn't show the top, but an interesting top would be near. Spire, or peaked roof or something

The podium needs something cool done with it. The problem here is we don't know what is down there. The big columns are kinda imposing A cool store could change the impression a lot.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

http://www.obj.ca/Real-Estate/Reside...ideau-Street/1

Claridge proposes three 28-storey towers on Rideau Street
OBJ StaffPublished on November 21, 2013Share 2
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Local developer Claridge is asking the city for permission to build three 28-storey mixed-use towers at 245 Rideau Street, according to documents issued by the city.

The proposed development would have approximately 43,932 square metres of floor space, a note recently circulated to members of the local community said.

The site, which is currently home to a grocery store, is bordered by Cumberland Street to the west and George Street to the north.

The three towers would share a single podium, which would range from three to seven storeys.

The plan calls for 578 residential units, along with commercial space at ground level. The development would have 658 parking spaces, located on six levels of underground parking.

The company paid $22.15 million for the property, according to data published earlier this year. Claridge is one of Ottawa’s largest downtown condo developers.



@neilmalhotra 34m
I'm going to have a dig out a pic of our new project on Rideau for the skyscraper crew. Stay tuned they might actually like this one.


Feb 2013 http://www.juteaujohnsoncomba.com/ne...mber_Sales.pdf

Interesting to see the price they paid and the total Sq Footage laid out. Shoes how little land cost contributes to the increase in cost of condos. Here it is less than $50/Sq Ft.

[waterloowarrior]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Interesting to see the price they paid and the total Sq Footage laid out. Shoes how little land cost contributes to the increase in cost of condos. Here it is less than $50/Sq Ft.

Remember that is gross floor area and also includes the commercial space, so if you are calculating the portion of land costs in the price per square foot for a condo unit, the number will be higher. To give you an idea, gross liveable area is around 70% of the gross floor area of a building if the GFA includes parking. There are also things like hallways, common areas, and other factors you would want to exclude if you were trying to get an idea of how much of the per square foot cost of a unit is land costs.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

Remember that is gross floor area and also includes the commercial space, so if you are calculating the portion of land costs in the price per square foot for a condo unit, the number will be higher. To give you an idea, gross liveable area is around 70% of the gross floor area of a building if the GFA includes parking. There are also things like hallways, common areas, and other factors you would want to exclude if you were trying to get an idea of how much of the per square foot cost of a unit is land costs.

Good points, but I would still count the commercial and parking as they are also sale-able Sq footage. Another factor is of course the carrying costs on the land purchase.

[gjhall]

Originally Posted by Jamaican-Phoenix

Yeah, I think I'm with you on this one.

I can't help but notice the lack of trees, lack of setbacks, and clarity as to the amount of street-level retail and its accessibility.

Please take a cursory glance at the actual documents on devapps, it has street level retail, trees and setbacks.

[Boxster]

Looking at it in a simple way, $22M / 578 units would amount to around $35K per unit when removing the commercial portion.

[Beedok]

That'll make quite the canyon.

[Boxster]

Just on a bigger scale than Richmond Rd.

Originally Posted by Beedok

That'll make quite the canyon.

[DowntownDensity]

What I like about this proposal:
-Some variation in shape, particularly the curved tower portion at the back and shifting from vertical to horizontal lines along the podium.
-The dark brown/black colour. Might look neat in contrast to CP I,II,III,IV across the street.
-It's not CP V, VI, VII.
-I actually find it kinda cool that the proposal architecturally mimics the Pearkes Building (DND HQ).
-While the proposal mirrors what already exists in the area (East Market condos) I think ultimately Claridge can do better. However, Claridge has clearly been listening and responding to popular opinion. Thank you Neil Malhotra!

What is dislike about this proposal:
-A lot of 25-28 storey development concentrated in this area. While I fully appreciate the economics of development, the need to maximize profit, and height restrictive NIMBYism in Ottawa, I think it would look amazing if the tower closest to Rideau on the West side were 15 storeys, with the other two more like 30-33 storeys to compensate. Just break up the canyon/tabletop a little bit. (At least it's not exactly going to be Queen Street.....)

EDIT: I have to say though, the more I look at this one the more it grows on me.

[OTSkyline]

Ok I agree, instead of saying "It's ugly" or "i don't like it", let's say how to improve it.

I say:
*Variation in height between the 3 towers
*Interesting roofs (think of top of Aura in Toronto) or spires or something..
*Maybe a slight difference in colour? One black, and two grey-ish or..?
*Podium should be a large 2-3 story inviting GLASS podium that is the collective podium for all three towers. This looks like three seperate towers and a 3 story store at the corner...

And yes, maybe a slightly bigger setback with trees, park benches and wider sidewalk

[DowntownDensity]

Excellent point about adding interesting rooftops, OTSkyline. By simply draping the mechanical rooftops in a styled facade there is immediate and *cost-effective* improvement to the whole project. (Hope you're reading this discussion, Claridge!). We have already seen good examples of this in Tribeca/Tribeca East, Minto Metropole, and 90 George. I'd argue that the addition of interesting rooftops wold even mitigate the negative impact of the 28-storey tabletop effect going on.

[Boxster]

How about a roof top common area à la "VIU"?

Its too bad that in the majority of buildings, most residents don't get to access this area.

Originally Posted by DowntownDensity

Excellent point about adding interesting rooftops, OTSkyline. By simply draping the mechanical rooftops in a styled facade there is immediate and *cost-effective* improvement to the whole project. (Hope you're reading this discussion, Claridge!). We have already seen good examples of this in Tribeca/Tribeca East, Minto Metropole, and 90 George. I'd argue that the addition of interesting rooftops wold even mitigate the negative impact of the 28-storey tabletop effect going on.

[J.OT13]

I don't hate it, but a variation in cladding/colour and most of all height would be appreciated. As the biggest condo developer, they should push for more height and break the height limits. Something like 20, 30 and 35 (1 floor more than the current proposal) would be much better.

[drawarc]

Will the Loeb have a new home in this complex?

[bartlebooth]

I am not a big fan of this proposal so far. I find it brutal at street level (yes, these are preliminary and early renderings). Those massive columns coming down to the street are not pretty. Three towers at 28 storey's seems way too dense as some others have mentioned and the fact that there is no variation in height is an issue but I wouldn't expect anything less from Claridge. Cramming as much onto a site as possible seems to be their only plan. Hopefully there are some serious edits with this proposal but I'm not holding my breath. They are probably one of the worst developers in Ottawa for me because of the massive impact they have on this city. So much mediocrity.

[Urbanarchit]

Originally Posted by bartlebooth

i am not a big fan of this proposal so far. I find it brutal at street level (yes, these are preliminary and early renderings). Those massive columns coming down to the street are not pretty. Three towers at 28 storey's seems way too dense as some others have mentioned and the fact that there is no variation in height is an issue but i wouldn't expect anything less from claridge. Cramming as much onto a site as possible seems to be their only plan. Hopefully there are some serious edits with this proposal but i'm not holding my breath. They are probably one of the worst developers in ottawa for me because of the massive impact they have on this city. So much mediocrity.

+1

[kevinbottawa]

Looks like the retail tenant will be another grocery store. Kinda disappointed.

Claridge plans three-tower complex to replace Rideau Street supermarket

By David Reevely, OTTAWA CITIZEN November 22, 2013

OTTAWA — Claridge Homes wants to build a thicket of three condos near the corner of Rideau Street and King Edward Avenue, extending the forest of towers that’s grown up east of downtown.

The development would involve demolishing a Metro supermarket and taking up much of its parking lot. Ottawa’s flagship LCBO store, just to the east, wouldn’t be involved.

The 28-storey trio in one of the city’s most prominent spots would have 578 units between them, says the application Claridge has filed with the city, plus a six-level underground garage under a multi-level podium. The project doesn’t need a rezoning: It’s on one major arterial road and close to another, near downtown and within walking distance of a planned light-rail station at the Rideau Centre.

It’s already zoned for tall buildings, though Claridge’s planned buildings reach the absolute upper limit of what’s allowed — in that spot, maximum heights are determined by the views of Parliament Hill, and at least one of the towers Claridge wants to build will have a slightly diagonal roofline, matching very precisely what’s permitted.

Claridge’s vice-president, Neil Malhotra, said the company hopes to find room in the two levels of commercial space it’s planning to fit a new grocery store, which may even be another Metro. The project is still in early stages — the current Metro has years to go on its lease, so the redevelopment won’t happen right away — and nobody’s negotiated anything yet, he said.

But Claridge is, so far, the only developer in Ottawa that’s put a major grocery store on the bottom of a condo development, a 30,000-square-foot Sobeys promised for the base of a two-tower project on Nepean Street that’s still under construction. They’re common in other, more crowded cities but not here.

“Food’s an important amenity we can provide when we do these larger-scale projects and the opportunities are limited,” Malhotra said. “Our projects are kind of bigger scale than most people’s in town. You need a certain critical mass to make a food store work. People like to fantasize about five- and six-thousand-square-foot food stores. It doesn’t work for the bigger food retailers, in our experience.”

If anything, supermarket chains have favoured larger stores lately, as companies such as Loblaw, Walmart and Canadian Tire have elbowed their way into each other’s territory, mixing up food, housewares and clothing in the same big box stores. The 30,000-square-foot Sobeys is about as small a location as a major chain is willing to look at, Malhotra said, but this complex’s commercial floors will have about 90,000 square feet of space in them.

As for the location generally, Claridge has dominated development on Rideau Street in recent years, putting up condo after condo marching east from the Rideau Centre. It’s happy to keep doing so, Malhotra said.

“That intersection of Rideau and Cumberland is a place where a lot of very successful parts of the city meet. A cross-section of one of the great urban neighbourhoods in Sandy Hill, the ByWard Market and the university campus. We find it a very desirable place for people to want to live. It’s one of the urban neighbourhoods Ottawa has that has every sort of amenity that people could want,” he said.

The condo market has slowed in Ottawa lately, as part of a general decline in sales of new homes, but Malhotra said Claridge isn’t perturbed. Sales are down markedly from an annual high of about 6,000 new dwellings of all kinds, but they’re still just at the low end of normal over the past 15 years or so, down at about 4,000 units. And in any event, with Metro’s lease remaining on the grocery store, Claridge won’t be trying to sell 578 condos in today’s market.

“This is a few years out,” Malhotra said.

dreevely@ottawacitizen.com

ottawacitizen.com/greaterottawa
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/busines...264/story.html

[Urbanarchit]

Originally Posted by kevinbottawa

Looks like the retail tenant will be another grocery store. Kinda disappointed.



http://www.ottawacitizen.com/busines...264/story.html

Does it mean it will be exclusively a grocery store in that space? There is a need for more grocery stores in Ottawa, and I would like to see the number of them increase, rather than decrease. Lowertown and Sandy Hill need more that residents can walk to (while avoiding the perils of Rideau and King Edward), as does Centretown, Dalhousie and Kitchissippi wards.

It’s already zoned for tall buildings, though Claridge’s planned buildings reach the absolute upper limit of what’s allowed — in that spot, maximum heights are determined by the views of Parliament Hill, and at least one of the towers Claridge wants to build will have a slightly diagonal roofline, matching very precisely what’s permitted.

Claridge is trying to build up to the absolute maximum height permitted. To get the most out of the site? I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm starting to get tired with all of these tall buildings. I'd rather see a few in the 30-40+ range, just enough to pop above other buildings, but not enough to create the forest canopy of the CBD. I'm starting to wish for more well-designed mid-rises.

[Rob64]

These buildings are so disappointing. If this is what they end up looking like, then it's a wasted opportunity. They look like rentals.