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General Rating for this project

  • Great

    Votes: 2 3.2%

  • Very Good

    Votes: 4 6.3%

  • Good

    Votes: 28 44.4%

  • So So

    Votes: 7 11.1%

  • Not Very Good

    Votes: 10 15.9%

  • Terrible

    Votes: 12 19.0%
  • Total voters
    63
I agree with you on the car ownership. I think most students will own a car, but that they won't drive it to school. When I went to SAIT. I drove in from the burbs, parked in Charleswood, and then walked to SAIT. In the winter I took the train all the way i. In both cases I didn't want to pay for parking. I don't even know what parking would be today, but I bet it's gone up alot in the 18 years since. If I'm a student living in this building there's no way I'm driving to school, it makes no sense. after hours, maybe, but with the way Banff Trail\Crowchild\16th ave is set up, I can't see traffic being affected much....at least not for residents of the community itself.


Cosmosus1 said:
Thanks JustDandy. Looks like a comprehensive concept for redevelopment has been on the table since October 2011. What happened to this initiative? Does not appear anything has been implemented during the past 6 years. Not sure if the community was asked for input and if so what were the priorities? While a 28 story is within Max FAR guidelines.......reality is the City Counselor and the developer will not actually live in the location - their focus is maximum size to ensure the economies of scale allow for maximum profit. It is being done all around the city - just questioning the reasoning for this project and how it fits into a reasonably thought through project which has been through extensive consultation.....
Thanks Jdixon. I certainly am not contending that everyone will have cars, just that most will have cars. Rather than making broad assumptions (as I am doing) and pointing to individual experiences (like yours) it would be great to get the facts though conducting studies/surveys. I good example would be to conduct a study of the residence University City complexes in the Brentwood mall area - who lives there, how many have vehicles, is parking adequate, how has the flow of both traffic and pedestrians been impacted and how can we improve on this development experience? Then the proper size of the building and the proper parking and road development (and pedestrian walks) can be adequately analyzed. On a separate note, I just rented a house in Briar Hill to 3 males attending SAIT - 2 of the 3had vehicles - they were within 500 yards of the university. I am just saying that the City does not appear to have the community and the long term impact of high density (mega high density in this case) in mind.
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Cosmosus1 said:
What happened to this initiative? Does not appear anything has been implemented during the past 6 years.
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These redevelopment plans are generational projects, not like the East Village where you have a huge injection of tax payer money to fix things up upfront - ARPs are fix as you go for the most part.
 
Always_Biking said:
I agree with you on the car ownership. I think most students will own a car, but that they won't drive it to school. When I went to SAIT. I drove in from the burbs, parked in Charleswood, and then walked to SAIT. In the winter I took the train all the way i. In both cases I didn't want to pay for parking. I don't even know what parking would be today, but I bet it's gone up alot in the 18 years since. If I'm a student living in this building there's no way I'm driving to school, it makes no sense. after hours, maybe, but with the way Banff Trail\Crowchild\16th ave is set up, I can't see traffic being affected much....at least not for residents of the community itself.
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Parking is really expensive - minimum $7 a day at UCalgary, $11 at SAIT. Much more than my $2.25 in undergrad!

If this building has a lot of parking for residents at a low price, it will attract people that have a car for activities. If it doesn't, it won't. I don't see the problem either way. Probably will generate way less traffic than some of the past restaurants in Motel Village.
 
darwink said:
Parking is really expensive - minimum $7 a day at UCalgary, $11 at SAIT. Much more than my $2.25 in undergrad!

If this building has a lot of parking for residents at a low price, it will attract people that have a car for activities. If it doesn't, it won't. I don't see the problem either way. Probably will generate way less traffic than some of the past restaurants in Motel Village.
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Wow, $11.00 a day at SAIT. I'm pretty sure I was paying $3.00 a day back when I went. It might have even been $2.00 a day. Even at a cheaper $7.00 for the U, it definitely doesn't make sense to drive. We can clearly agree that students won't be driving to and from school very much, if at all.
 
JustDandy said:
no worries, it for some reason is a difficult plan to find on the city website( no surprise) . From my understanding the community was asked for input, most of that input was regarding the city funding for the Crowchild trail improvements and pedestrian improvements. BTCA from what I have heard is more interested in making sure there is added benefit to their community via increased pedestrian infrastructure and better traffic flow to limit those choosing to go north on 19th st to 24th ave to access crowchild north.

As for the plan itself, this looks to be really the first proposal in accordance with it. I believe the City doesn't have the funds to implement all these measures in the plan on the front end, but rather develop them along with proposals. Thus the onramp was tied to development in this area of a threshold amount.

I think we can all agree from a pedestrian stand point, Motel Village is not very accommodating at all. Therefore the benefits strongly outweight the negatives for the majority of the community.
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There have been a few others. The re-build of the Holiday Inn Express up at 23rd Ave is a major project that has been completed since the ARP was done. Also, there was a land use application for the parcels directly East of this project (except the McDonalds) that was eventually tabled by Council. The big challenge with that one was the City coming to terms with the applicant about how to fund the new road as outlined in the ARP. I am not sure if it is still moving forward, but it looks like it has been stalled for quite a while.
 
MichaelS said:
There have been a few others. The re-build of the Holiday Inn Express up at 23rd Ave is a major project that has been completed since the ARP was done. Also, there was a land use application for the parcels directly East of this project (except the McDonalds) that was eventually tabled by Council. The big challenge with that one was the City coming to terms with the applicant about how to fund the new road as outlined in the ARP. I am not sure if it is still moving forward, but it looks like it has been stalled for quite a while.
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I'm aware of the holiday inn, however I never really considered it much of a density increase as it is a massing exercise. The current building uses the site more efficiently.
 
This is a super bold and impressive development. The developer mentioned during their presentation of their other projects of student-oriented housing in Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa that have far less transit access than this, with car ownership of as low as 5% of residents. It'll be hard to imagine a better site than this directly between two major institutions and with an development of this scale it will trigger a significant boost for Banff Trail, perhaps enough to get some sidewalks financed.

Parking issues - as in most cases in this city - is way overblown here. What is a student going to do, park their car in Briar Hill and drive to school? Hardly. It's an easy 10 minutes walk to either Briar Hill or Banff Trail given the terrible connectivity, sound walls and freeways. If it's 10 minutes - and you already have a transit pass - why would you drive to school? Remember, this isn't an apartment building. It's a student dorm. The percentage of out-of-town students/international students will be much higher, both of which have little expectation of a car for their day to day.

Finally, it was mentioned in the presentation something we don't look for often when we talk parking: what is the precedence in similar buildings nearby? It was mentioned several times that both The Birchwood (on 24th Ave & Crowchild) and University City (Brentwood) have many empty stalls in their parkades, and they are traditional condo-type developments, designed to cater to students. Surely a dorm-style apartment designed for international and out-of-town students would have even lower vehicle ownership.
 
This one is even close to my place than Catalyst. Will be able to update pretty regularly :D Also will be able to update the new Brentwood TOD building.
 
Keep in mind, it's privately funded student housing. Regular updates could ruin your positive outlook with development. I hope not. The reputation for ugly is high.
 
I'm very happy to see this one get approval. It may not be the prettiest design, but the building's function has several pluses.

Given the targeted market, I bet this will go forward.
 
Always_Biking said:
I'm very happy to see this one get approval. It may not be the prettiest design, but the building's function has several pluses.

Given the targeted market, I bet this will go forward.
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Not the prettiest design is an understatement given it height. The usual way overpriced accommodations eats into those pluses as well. As you can tell, I'm not impressed by these student residence builders. It only ever works out for the students when the universities arrange a lease agreement with these developers to lease the space. Get better design too.
 
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