Midtown Station | ?m | ?s | IBI Group

New Info/Renders

Slightly Adjusted Concept Plan (With new park and building massings)

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Detailed Central Greenspace Plans
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New Misc. Renderings

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C-Train Station Render
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Comparison

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Side note, apparently the developer behind this project is "Cantana Investments Limited" (IBI is just the architect). I've never heard the name before but the website says: "The developer behind Midtown Station has a longstanding presence in the Calgary market with multiple successful developments in its record." Possibly a subsidiary created specifically for this project? Who could it be though...
 
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There's almost no info at all about Cantana Investments. Some sort of holding company, and I'm curious who it's tied to.

The whole plan and some of the renderings remind me a lot of the development around Metrotown Mall station.
 
Surrealplaces said:
There's almost no info at all about Cantana Investments. Some sort of holding company, and I'm curious who it's tied to.

The whole plan and some of the renderings remind me a lot of the development around Metrotown Mall station.
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Concord Pacific did Metrotown. They also did The Concord which would check the box of "successful development(s) in Calgary." If it is them, I'm ever more cautiously hyped for this since they're a VERY well-respected developer. Grain of salt and all that though
 
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DiscoStu said:
This is clearly still in the SimCity/fantasy stage, as the concept plan rendering shows curved condo towers. Until they are all boxes, I’m not taking this one seriously.
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Keep in mind everything so far is JUST for the land use application. The fact that the first phase requires an entire C-Train station to be built pretty much means it's all or nothing here.
 
Unless it's someone like Concord I have zero confidence in this going forward. Even then there are so many sites in various parts of Calgary owned by deep pocketed developers that DON'T require a new train station.
 
I'm a total layman with this stuff, but why do some of you think this will never happen? Just too big of a project for Calgary? Too many regulatory hurdles? I'm not trying to challenge your opinions, I'm just genuinely curious as I'd love to see this go forward. To me this is the kind of development Canadian cities need. Integrated LRT station?? Schwing!
 
KrisYYC said:
I'm a total layman with this stuff, but why do some of you think this will never happen? Just too big of a project for Calgary? Too many regulatory hurdles? I'm not trying to challenge your opinions, I'm just genuinely curious as I'd love to see this go forward. To me this is the kind of development Canadian cities need. Integrated LRT station?? Schwing!
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Calgarians generally don't prefer condo living, so financially these proposals don't always justify building them. However, I do see a potential for this to take off if the towers are rental-focused, as there is a strong demand today and likely for the foreseeable future for such a market. I think developers generally bait and switch projects a lot in Calgary to cash in value from a land use change.

You'll see a new suburban community put together in 5-10 years in Calgary but something of this scale has never taken off. Currie Barracks and Westbrook Station are similar ambitious examples of where a clean canvas is sitting dead amid a housing crunch. I still think the City should allow the land use change to happen, so that it unlocks potential for future density, even if the developer doesn't build anything. I just hope they don't sit on it for decades just to cash in on the land appreciation (cough* Macto Group from Westbrook Mall cough*)
 
KrisYYC said:
I'm a total layman with this stuff, but why do some of you think this will never happen? Just too big of a project for Calgary? Too many regulatory hurdles? I'm not trying to challenge your opinions, I'm just genuinely curious as I'd love to see this go forward. To me this is the kind of development Canadian cities need. Integrated LRT station?? Schwing!
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So many other pre zoned sites for multi family, and condo prices don’t support concrete tower construction in this location (or almost anywhere in the city). Would take an eternity to build out as planned and the owner has no background in land development and home building.

Would work at a smaller scale if it was someone like Minto who knows what they are doing and would likely buildout as townhomes and 4 and 6 storey apartments with some commercial. Then it would build out in ~20ish years. Towers at this scale proposed aren’t economical and would take an eternity to build out even with a seasoned developer.

These applications are almost always a land owner with a fledgling asset looking to cash in on the speculative land lift from additional density to try to sell unimproved parcels
 
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Calgcouver said:
So many other pre zoned sites for multi family and condo prices don’t support concrete tower construction in this location (or almost anywhere in the city). Would take an eternity to build out as planned and the owner has no background in land development and home building.

Would work if it was someone like Minto who knows what they are doing and would likely buildout as all townhomes and 4 and 6 storey apartments with some commercial. Then it would build out in ~20ish years. Towers at this scale proposed aren’t economical and would take an eternity to build out even with a seasoned developer.

These applications are almost always a land owner with a fledgling asset looking to cash in on the speculative land lift of additional density.
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I always struggle with understanding this side of the development world - if the proposal is so outlandish to be not economic in almost any timeline, by any developer, why would the zoning create a marketable land lift at all here?

Why wouldn't the lift value float more closely to the use value of the land - i.e. if there's no market for towers now or far into the future, why isn't the land value just near the highest realistic development potential of today?

Relatedly, if the city burdens this new upzoned land with some requirements to make the zoning conditional on an LRT station contribution, wouldn't that reduce the uplift potential? If the problem is unrealistically high land costs, would a burden like an LRT station actually lower the value, and therefore paradoxically make it more likely to transact?
 
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CBBarnett said:
would a burden like an LRT station actually lower the value
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$5 a developable square foot if the station is $50 million.

That isn’t an unthinkable amount. But it makes things harder for sure :) and when that money comes due is a big factor.

Add in too much for incremental water and sewer trunks, a Councillor randomly asking that a free community centre be included, an incremental fire station, etc etc, it would kill it.

But it really depends.

Vancouver ends up at $200 a square foot upfront. So it depends what you can sell at. And then you have to finance that amount! At least with the GST it is at the back end. The fees move what is developed up market.

Calgary tries to get $20 a square foot for suburban could just well displace development up the value chain. TBH I don’t know what the average level is today in Calgary. What I know is project by project it can be quite random. And the city means to fix that but it is a hard one to fix.
 
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