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This is another approved project in the east end of downtown Kitchener. It is located at 1001 King St E, the property is a consolidation of numerous properties so it spans from King St E to Charles St E. The tower itself is composed of 2 primary parts, a 30 floor tower which has frontage on Charles St as well as an 11 floor tower which spans the Borden Ave side of the property. The remainder of the site is covered in a 4 floor podium. Overall the development consists of 464 units, 7 live/work units, 10 3brdm, 115 2brdm and the remaining 332 being 1brdm. The development also includes 4860 sqft of commercial space divided into 2 units fronting King St E. The development is expected to include 8061 sqft of indoor amenity space and 5326 sqft of outdoor amenity space. In terms of parking there is 313 vehicular spaces (includes visitor and barrier free) and 235 bicycle spaces (Class A and B). Parking access is provided from King St E. I know some people on this forum will despise this but there is only 3 elevators for the 464 units.

This project has gone through many iterations to get to the current approved form, I seem to recall 2 other proposals, one that was almost identical just with less commercial space, the other had the tower orientated in a differ location and city staff didn't like it. Vive also owns most of the remaining properties on the block and they have plans to redevelop the rest of it at some point, originally it was supposed to be 3 phases with 3 towers at 32, 27 and 15 floors, since then the market has obviously changed so those heights are very much up in the air.

Here are the documents for those interested: 1001 King St E Docs

Model of the building (left is from King, right is from Charles)
Screenshot 2023-11-06 214552.png


Renders (This is from the second submission, there wasn't any attached to the most recent submission, notably there are no longer units on the bottom 4 floors facing Borden Ave and the podium is 2 floors shorter)
Screenshot 2023-11-06 214826.png
 
The windows are too large in many Toronto condos. And then there are other cities.

42
 
Vive now has conditional site plan approval for this project, the two towers are now 29 and 11 floors down from 30 and 11. They applied for demolition permits late last year for all of the properties on the site, the largest existing building on the site (1027 King St E) needs a HIA since it is listed as a heritage building but it is not designated. Within the HIA there are a few new renders which are interesting to say the least, definitely comical compared to Toronto developments.

Ottawa/King Perspective
Screenshot 2024-01-26 143543.png


King St Perspective
Screenshot 2024-01-26 144902.png
 
The podium is somewhat bearable but the tower section, with its messy balconies steals the show, and not in a good way. It has a Soviet gulag aesthetic.
 
Vive has started construction on this site in the last month or so. When I last walked by this site they had a shoring rig on site but weren't actively working, since then they have brought in a second rig and have started the shoring work, HCM is the shoring contractor, with the set up that HCM has it appears that they are using a secant pile wall since they have their mobile concrete plant and related equipment on site.

The project manager for this site appears to be Jackman Ltd, when I walked by they had a bunch of their trucks on site, they've done a few of Vives other smaller projects such as Woodside Phase 2 and The Carmine. The largest project that they've done from my understanding is a 9 floor building elsewhere in Kitchener for a different developer so regardless this is by far the largest project they have been involved with in a PM capacity, it is also Vives largest project to date.

Here's a Google Streetview picture of the site showing one of the shoring rigs and the batching plant.
Screenshot 2024-10-18 221124.png
 
Matt.R.WR said:
Is SYLK not their largest? It's almost 1000 units, this one's only 464. Though I suspect SYLK's first phase (nearing completion) has a smaller unit count.
Click to expand...

I was meaning largest in terms of height (30 floors, I believe its dropped to 29 through SPA) as well as units in a building. You're correct in saying SYLK at full build out will have more total units then this but each building at SYLK will have 300 give or take this is 464. So in terms of height and units this is Vive's largest so far.

If we conside other projects by Vive 50 Borden and the CTV site are both going to be larger on a per building and entire complex scale compared to SYLK, so it really all depends on what you're considering.
 
This has progressed surprisingly quick now that they have a tower crane up. The concrete contractor on this is Reimar who are the same people doing the new student residence at McMaster (Lincoln Alexander Hall) so this should fly.

The one bizzare thing with this is they don't have any building permit right now for anything beyond foundation work yet they're working on above grade columns. The system that Kitchener has doesn't show conditional permits so it is quite possible that they have something conditional and it's just not showing.

Regardless here's a picture of the site, it was at dusk as I was driving by so it isn't a good photo by any means.
20250307_183845.jpg


This a photo from one of the higher points in KW, the tower crane already sticks out so it's going to be a really massive change for that area of downtown Kitchener which has historically been low rise housing and industrial, however there is significantly more to come in that area.
20250312_191357.jpg
 
Just noticed that Vive now also labels the cranes at their sites. Pretty sure this is the first project they've done it for, as all my crane-having photos of their SYLK project don't show any lettering.
1000011789.jpg
 
The third floor is now completed across most of the site. As of now Vive only has the permit for the podium (up to the 5th floor), the permit for the rest of the building is currently under review so it should presumably be issued soon if there's going to be no delay.

King/Ottawa corner April 18 2025
8g6otfnb.png
 
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