Disraeli
Active Member
Isn't the market being demolished to make way for the Green Line station and tunnel portal?
Eau Claire Market Redevelopment | 135.02m | 35s | Harvard Developments
- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
Mountain Man
Senior Member
Not sure, that would make sense though.
Disraeli
Active Member
I double checked and the new alignment does have it cutting through the market with the station being integrated into the new development, so the mall is not long for this world it would appear. I guess we will see whether Harvard will actually build when the time comes
UrbanWarrior
Senior Member
It would make sense for Harvard to go through with phase 1/2 (SW parking lot currently) so they can move the theatre and other amenities to the podium of it before the mall is demoed. That’s usually how it works when this sort of thing happens.
JonnyCanuck
Senior Member
Market factors are keeping this project on pause. I believe the final approved proposal still called for condominiums (and not cheap ones either) plus at least one office tower. Neither the condo nor office market, in it's current state, would support this project starting. Even if the LRT station was already in place, I doubt that would change things much.
Mountain Man
Senior Member
Might have to wander through there once more if it's days are truly numbered...
I doubt the development itself is going to happen any time soon, but it would be smart for Harvard to work with the city on it. Construction of the station is likely a few years out still, so who knows what the market will do in the meantime.
I doubt the development itself is going to happen any time soon, but it would be smart for Harvard to work with the city on it. Construction of the station is likely a few years out still, so who knows what the market will do in the meantime.
darwink
Senior Member
I really hope this doesn't result in another Westbrook situation. Did the developers pay handsomely for the approved density and now are stuck since the delta the market would command is nowhere near what is needed?
Disraeli
Active Member
We'll see though. The condo market is recovering somewhat so the timing might work for a phased development. This is also a location that is prime for investment
JonnyCanuck
Senior Member
If it really is recovering, you would see resale condo prices in the core improving. Not sure that is happening in any appreciable way. If the demand and prices do move up, then we will probably have a glut of resales hit the market. There are a lot of investors who bought condos in the last boom who have been renting them out, in the hopes that one day they might be able to sell it for what they paid for it. Now, securing long term rentals is problematic because of all the competition from new purpose rental projects. In the face of this, the answer for condo investors was to turn their unit into an AirBnB property. However, resident owners in buildings such as mine, are voting to ban short term rentals.
I can't help but think we are building up a housing surplus in the core at a time when jobs are vacating the core.
darwink
Senior Member
Even if prices are flat, but they start to move in greater numbers. Time on market for condos that are not cut to the bone for a bank sale is brutal.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
The city is a big labour and jobs market. Sure, losing some types of jobs in the core hurts local fundamentals/certain housing product types in the short-run but the location with the access to the most jobs for the most people is still the inner and centre city and likely to remain that way under any scenario.
That's why we still build apartments in the core and likely to continue until we are out of space, or there's a significant market intervention, or an overall decline in the total region's jobs. While growing, non of our regional competitors offer similar accessibility.
Year to year fluctuations aside, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal all had city-centre population growth outstrip job growth for decades.
Disraeli
Active Member
Resale prices have been improving in a noticeable way in the core but I don't think to the point where there is enough confidence for anything resembling a condo boom. I'm still confident that this development, with the amount of amenities and it's location, would likely do well with local and speculative buyers
That and there are still a very large amount of young, well paid professionals working in the core. We still remain a major hub for finance, legal services, engineering ext.
That and there are still a very large amount of young, well paid professionals working in the core. We still remain a major hub for finance, legal services, engineering ext.
I'll add my two cents to the discussion. As mentioned earlier in some posts, a station at Eau Claire might allow the market area to become a better hub, especially if the mall is torn down and the area was to be redeveloped as a group of smaller individual buildings. A group of small individual buildings with a mixture one lane streets and pedestrian corridors could have some real potential.
If it gets developed by one land owner as one project it's doomed to be nothing more than a large podium with some towers on top, that has the convenience of a train station. It'll make for a decent little hub, but not much more.
One of the problems facing Eau Claire is the sheer amount of competition from so many other cool areas around the city. 4th street SW, 17th ave, and generally the Beltline as a whole, not to mention Kensington, Bridgeland, Inglewood, East Village, Marda Loop and Stephen Ave.
If it gets developed by one land owner as one project it's doomed to be nothing more than a large podium with some towers on top, that has the convenience of a train station. It'll make for a decent little hub, but not much more.
One of the problems facing Eau Claire is the sheer amount of competition from so many other cool areas around the city. 4th street SW, 17th ave, and generally the Beltline as a whole, not to mention Kensington, Bridgeland, Inglewood, East Village, Marda Loop and Stephen Ave.
Makarov
New Member
Eau Claire has advantages though: proximity to the river/prince's Island park and Chinatown. It just needs to leverage them.
gsunnyg
Senior Member
Honestly, they should just go back to the drawing board. Design something more human scale, with narrow Europe-like retail streets and apartment units on top. Instead of 35, 25, 20, 15, and 13, storey towers going up, they should just cut the heights in half and reconfigure the layout into a grid-like system, eventually integrating with the river pathway. The current design isn't anything wow. The towers look nice but I doubt we'll get anything close to the renderings, especially if they're built as rentals. I'd like to have a well-designed bustling area with some decent density rather than have some fancy tall towers with large glossy podiums.