Highland Park Redevelopment | ?m | 15s | Maple Projects Inc.

Dropping the towers from 18 to 8 is a good move imo. It's too large a scale for the location, whereas 8 floors would fit in comfortably. More people are on side, but there was still opposition apparently.
 
The whole development has a bit too much tower-in-the-park going on. I understand that preserving green space is a large part of the discussion and a hilly site is challenging to work with, but preserving useful green space should be a bigger priority. Density increases are good, but only if they create walkable environments and transit supportive design. This development does those things, but only kind of.

I like the orientation of some of the buildings along Centre, with the exception of the northern most building being turned awkwardly towards the new roadway rather than Centre Street, effectively creating a strange grassy triangle along Centre that will never be redeveloped or put to any use. Poor design practice for what is supposed to be a major transit and pedestrian corridor.
 
It looks like at least 4 of the structures are 10+ storeys.
 
It's not my money of course, but I wish that the development has more along the lines of 4 or 5, 12 story buildings right along centre street on both sides, with street frontage and wide sidewalks and some retail...... and a few smaller buildings in behind. I understand the developers wanting to maximize the land, but it isn't always beneficial to the area.
 
Two days of Council debate later and no decision has yet been made. Looks like discussions will resume Monday.
It's been called a 'hot mess' by some councillors lol. Myself, I'm on the fence when it comes to this development.

On one hand I like to see the extra density and development in a neighbourhood like that, but I think the design needs to be better.
 
Not a huge fan of the design either, but to play devil's advocate, it's not an easy parcel to develop. Because the parcel was a golf course, it more or less was an afterthought - from a development point of view. I for one like the idea of having the transportation corridor down the middle of the development connecting 40th back over to Centre Street.
 
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I know there were some unique hurdles with this development but we have two other golf course developments ... Harvest Hills and Shawnee .... that are thriving. How is it that this one in a prime location can't move forward???
 
I know there were some unique hurdles with this development but we have two other golf course developments ... Harvest Hills and Shawnee .... that are thriving. How is it that this one in a prime location can't move forward???
I suspect a big part of it was the market. I thin these were going to be condos rather than rental. Also the fact that they bought it for $8Million and are now listing it at $11Million, tells me they were just as happy to flip it. They have the other two Beltline projects coming down the pipe.
 

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