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General Construction Updates

Such is the cycle of gentrification. If it does get torn down maybe the city could try and work out a deal to replace it with an affordable housing project?

Is it my imagination or does the building look identical to the low cost place that was torn down in Eau Claire?

Nimbus said:
While it is fugly it does provide lower rent housing in an area that is amenity and transit rich. So I'd ultimately hate to see it go, and get replaced with something new and unaffordable.
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I don’t know if it’s been mentioned, but that condo project beside the River and breakfast on Memorial has drilling equipment on site.
 
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Got out of a bit of an extended walk Friday, took some pictures of the progress at Meadows Mile.

Progress is moving slow on most projects, except the retail strip. Here is a shot from November 15th showing the Holiday Inn behind it:

Retail and Holiday Inn IMG_2269 by ferreth, on Flickr

The concrete and wall studs are new in the last two weeks.

As of Friday, here is the retail strip:

Retail DensGlass Walls IMG_2274 by ferreth, on Flickr
Walls are up on three sides, plus paving has started. If everything else moved at this pace, we'd all be looking at finished buildings now.

I think the final cladding is mostly done for the Holiday Inn - here is a detail shot from what will be the street facing entrance:

Holiday Inn Detail Cladding by ferreth, on Flickr

I am not a fan - the charcoal is OK, but the rest is too grey and cream - even for me who is usually good with the standard brown and beige in Calgary.

Here is an overall shot of the Holiday Inn from Friday. Not much change in two weeks even on the remaining details:

Holiday Inn Construction IMG_2275 by ferreth, on Flickr

Walking further north to visit the Ferrari dealer. The exterior is getting close, looks like mostly window trim and door left on south and east sides:

Ferrari Dealer South Side IMG_2278 by ferreth, on Flickr

Ferrari Dealer SE Corner IMG_2280 by ferreth, on Flickr

They did paint the concrete panels - a slight improvement but still pretty boring. Perhaps the final window trim will improve it a bit:

Ferrari East Window and Walls IMG_2281 by ferreth, on Flickr
Note the landscaping - let's see how much of this recent stuff survives the winter.

Here is the north side of the building, still being worked on - looking to be a different "color" of panel from what is done so far:

Ferrari North Side IMG_2283 by ferreth, on Flickr

I'll have to get a shot of the NW side at some point - it stair steps back along that corner, so there is less west wall facing the corner of Blackfoot and Heritage.

Lastly, the car wash is pretty much done on the outside. I hate the "Barney purple" color, but at least they have built something with a bit of a more interesting shape than a standard industrial box:

Carwash Constructon IMG_2285 by ferreth, on Flickr

Last I looked on the inside a month ago it was pretty empty still, but they could move this along pretty quick if they want to be open soon.

The rest of the projects have not really changed in the last month. Professional center is still a hole, although at least they have resumed on finishing up the shoring. The Cadillac dealer is still a hole, although I didn't take a close look at it on Friday to see if foundation construction is starting - they are working on the site at any rate.

I also have noted in general that landscaping is to a higher standard for all the projects - the area should look pretty good in ten years assuming they can keep the trees going. I'm hoping the retail will attract a restaurant or deli place - it would be nice to have something to walk to for lunch. At least the hotel will have something, whenever it gets finished!
 
The Holiday Inn is finally getting close to completion, maybe it'll beat out that hotel in North Korea. lol.

That hotel has been taking forever. I've seen a bout a dozen hotels go up around the airport since that one started.
 
Hey construction/development experts, random question after I saw the Shamrock Hotel being demolished for Greenline right-of-way: what would be a typical demolition cost per square foot for various types of structures? I am curious what the financial implications are for redevelopment v. developing on empty sites? Any ballpark numbers I could wrap my head around?
 
I can't find a print article anywhere, but I heard on the radio yesterday that as part of their budget update to Council, Calgary Parking Authority confirmed they are delaying (if not cancelling?) a downtown parkade to save $60 million in capital costs. I assume they are referring to the East Village parkade that was to be built on 9th Ave, next to the Enmax District Energy Plant. Did anyone else hear this news?
 
Mountain Man said:
I'm sure they are delaying it, once the economy fully rebounds we will need that parkade.
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They are also re-evaluating their economic models of stand-alone parking garages - with a pay-off of several decades currently, it's starting to get much more risky to build parking garages if autonomous vehicles come to fruition. It turns out you don't need all vehicles to switch over before parking garages become a net-loss due to their long-payback. There is talk of stand-alone garages not making sense economically if even 10% of vehicles entering the core no longer require parking. Of course, there is a lot of speculation - and little certainty - on how autonomous vehicles will roll out, but on a long-payoff project like a garage it adds a ton of risk that was never there 20 years ago.

This is part of the logic behind some of the parking regulation changes the city went through last year in the core. Developers can now build more parking than previously in the core, rather than pay-in-lieu to finance public garages. This was done in part because of a desire to transfer the long-term risk of owning parking garages to the private sector.

Related: new above-grade parking standards are being implemented with the idea of designing future public parkades to be converted to other uses. Rumour was these would be published sometime in the next year or so.

This also opens up another conversation about below-grade / structured parking. Below-grade is more expensive and is preferred generally for a variety of reasons (maximize high-value rentable above-grade space, urban design reasons etc.) Structured parking has a terrible reputation (look no further than the horror-show of street-killing design on the 10th Avenue parkade by the Calgary Tower) but is cheaper and can be re-purposed if it is designed right. In a future where parking demand is lessened and parking garage returns begin to flag, it's not unrealistic to convert structured parking to other, more productive uses, similar to the office-to-residential conversions underway now. Below-grade parking has very limited potential to convert to anything else.
 
Fewer people are driving. Fewer people are even getting their driver's license. That's less theoretical than autonomous vehicles.

Why do you feel underground has limited potential if it were "designed right"? There's already millions of square feet of underground office space and millions more in underground retail in Canada. Why not manufacturing? Delving into science fiction, these garages make more sense to me as potential high yield farms than the theoretical skyscrapers.
 
maestro said:
Fewer people are driving. Fewer people are even getting their driver's license. That's less theoretical than autonomous vehicles.

Why do you feel underground has limited potential if it were "designed right"? There's already millions of square feet of underground office space and millions more in underground retail in Canada. Why not manufacturing? Delving into science fiction, these garages make more sense to me as potential high yield farms than the theoretical skyscrapers.
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I was chatting to an architect once about what to do with all of the underground parking if "parking" was no longer a needed use. Her suggestion, which I thought was brilliant, was conversion to hydroponic agricultural uses. I am sure there would be some mechanical design issues to sort out, but I thought it was a brilliant idea.
 
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