The Hub | ?m | 28s | Campus Suites | ARK Inc.

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
Reminds me a bit of the old Mackimmie tower facade...

199017
 
Some new info on this one. I'd be interested to hear anyone's input.

Fly-by Video Rendering (includes ultimate 16th Ave upgrade build-out):
https://youtu.be/XHvRFZUJkyI

Some notable design changes:
- Two stories removed from tower and height reduced accordingly.
- Podium height increased from 12.5m to 14m (due to construction type change from concrete slabs to steel beams).
- Podium rooftop patio removed due to neighboring community privacy and noise concerns. Will become just a mechanical space.
- Amenity space / fitness centre moved from forth floor to top floor.
- Large main floor restaurant and patio seating to be replaced by four smaller fast food style restaurants with outdoor seating on the East side of the building.
The removal of the rooftop podium amenity smells fishy (at least the rationale for removing it does). Noise and privacy? The nearest residence is 100m away behind a 3m sound barrier with a soon-to-be 8 lane highway between them. More likely a choice to remove the outdoor amenity because of it's lack of "amenity": the background noise of this location will be a roar of cars for the foreseeable future - increasingly worse due to our transportation department's bizarre continued insistence on inner city road expansion to allow even more cars.

It's a good boring project overall; but wow, it's a bit of 2 steps forward, 2 steps back with the transportation infrastructure plans in the area. The problem is a lack of connectivity within Banff Trail; the solution proposed is to expand all the roads in the area and add a few sidewalks. That's not the public environment where a development like this will thrive in by adding some inner city students and pedestrians.

My critiques are mostly about this plan rather than this project.
 
? ? ?o_O
 
A few more snapshots from the video rendering.
 

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This is one of things I hate about development in Calgary, a few locals are so scared of tall towers outside of the Core area in 2019 thats its getting kind of ridiculous. On the other hand Toronto and Vancouver are throwing up 50 storey towers outside of their metros main downtown like its nothing. We need to get past that 100m mark like you would with a band-aid, rip it off and move on already, everyone will eventually get used to it. Still nice to get some decent height with this doe, 2 stories won't make that big of a difference.
 
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This is one of things I hate about development in Calgary, a few locals are so scared of tall towers outside of the Core area in 2019 thats its getting kind of ridiculous. On the other hand Toronto and Vancouver are throwing up 50 storey towers outside of their metros main downtown like its nothing. We need to get past that 100m mark like you would with a band-aid, rip it off and move on already, everyone will eventually get used to it. Still nice to get some decent height with this doe, 2 stories won't make that big of a difference.

I like tall buildings but there has to be a supportive argument beyond just adding to the skyline or to add to the inventory . We need to stop measuring cities by the number of tall buildings. The coverage and densities do not support the height here. Half the site is a surface parking lot. I would much rather have had the sister development at York University built here instead.

Toronto is probably the last place I would look towards when it comes to dense suburban development. Everything is supersized from the tall towers to the roads. It's hostile dense concrete jungles without the amenities or walkability of a downtown. Vancouver does a very good job unlike Toronto. I still question the need to build 40 to 50 floors with densities usually at 5 or 6 times the lot size. I've live and worked in tall towers. The views are incredible. You do think twice about going outside for a quick jaunt around the block to socialize. I like the analogy of suburbs in the sky.
 
I agree with @maestro

For a cautionary tale of what happens when you go crazy with dirt cheap residential towers built around suburban university campuses, see Waterloo, and Waterloo, and Waterloo.

I lived in Waterloo during a period of rapid growth when many of these developments were going up. The increased density was welcomed but there was a complete lack of oversight or dictation as to how these buildings intereacted with the street. Definitely did not help contribute to create better and more liveable streets.
 
I like tall buildings but there has to be a supportive argument beyond just adding to the skyline or to add to the inventory . We need to stop measuring cities by the number of tall buildings. The coverage and densities do not support the height here. Half the site is a surface parking lot. I would much rather have had the sister development at York University built here instead.

Toronto is probably the last place I would look towards when it comes to dense suburban development. Everything is supersized from the tall towers to the roads. It's hostile dense concrete jungles without the amenities or walkability of a downtown. Vancouver does a very good job unlike Toronto. I still question the need to build 40 to 50 floors with densities usually at 5 or 6 times the lot size. I've live and worked in tall towers. The views are incredible. You do think twice about going outside for a quick jaunt around the block to socialize. I like the analogy of suburbs in the sky.
I’m not arguing on behalf of what an ideal development would look like from a density perspective, I’m saying that when these towers are proposed, why do people have to resist with stupidity? There’s clearly a market for this tower to go up otherwise it would have not been built so then why must a group of Nimbyist assemble and give a developer a tough time over pathetic issues like privacy. You don’t see developers and the city halls in metro Vancouver cave in as much to the demands of a few mongering Nimbyist because their consistent with approving developments where sites allow for high density taller buildings. So why do people in our city still get rattled up over a 30 storey tower in the suburbs when areas like Banff trail already have ARP’s approved for tall buildings, that’s my concern. I love midrises and high rises equally and theirs rooms for both depending on the location but again my problem is not with which ones should be prioritized it’s more so with the NIMBY attitude in a city of 1.3 million people against tall structures in areas that have been already allowed for high density/tall buildings under city land use bylaws
 

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