Might as well start a thread for this, as it's going to be happening sometime in the future.
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- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
Affordable housing, halfway covered: City of Calgary to pitch in $53.5M for Bridgeland Place redevelopment
The City of Calgary will fund nearly half the estimated cost of its planned Bridgeland Place affordable housing redevelopment.
The city has offered to fund up to half.
zagox
Active Member
So the plan is to spend $109M on a new building ($491k per unit) when the estimated repairs for the existing building were $15M?Affordable housing, halfway covered: City of Calgary to pitch in $53.5M for Bridgeland Place redevelopment
The City of Calgary will fund nearly half the estimated cost of its planned Bridgeland Place affordable housing redevelopment.calgary.ctvnews.ca
The city has offered to fund up to half.
How many centuries of "reduced utility costs" will it take to recoup that extra $94M in capital costs?
They could build another 300+ units somewhere else in the city if they just repaired the existing building!!!
rkarsk
New Member
My understanding is that figure also includes a number of local pedestrian and road improvements, would love confirmation from someone closer to this
CBBarnett
Senior Member
Yeah - I feel there's something missing here in the story, to your point - it wouldn't make sense to cost this much per door if you can really refurbish the existing structure for cheaper.
Triggers a question for the construction and building folks - when would it make sense to tear down a tower like this? Short of a land value play or redevelopment for profit, we don't see a ton of older towers this size coming down very often, here or in other Canadian cities. From a lay-person perspective wouldn't it always be cheaper to just reno the structure and replace, even if it's a total gut of all the systems? Saves you 20 stories of concrete to replace (unless structurally there is an issue that can't be fixed?)
I get the office conversion issue - where the floor plates and building systems don't always allow economic office-to-res conversion, but this is just res-to-new res. What are we missing in the equation here?
I'm wondering the same thing. Maybe they've have factored in long term savings with a new building? The way I understand it, is the new building would be a lot more efficient, even if the existing building was renovated, but could wrong.
zagox
Active Member
My cynical hypothesis is that it is easier to find $109M in government funding for a shiny new energy efficient building than $15M to do deferred maintenance to keep something habitable if basic.
artvandelay
Active Member
The hypocrisy of some of these climate initiatives.
Also, architects and engineers are extremely risk averse and will often recommend starting from a clean slate to avoid the challenges of dealing with existing buildings, and public sector clients often accept these recommendations without challenging them. There's nothing that would prevent the addition of insulation to the existing envelope, adding high efficiency boilers/chillers etc. to improve building performance.
maestro
Senior Member
Modernist towers are starting to come down across Canada.. This would be one of the largest. The $15 million is probably the minimum needed to make it habitable. It has a large surface parking lot to develop with a private investor. The tower's position will blocks views of the downtown from new development. I wonder if that has anything to do with the decision to destroy it.
A-OK
New Member
I struggle to believe that this building would be demolished. Perhaps the term 'redevelopment' is being used to refer to the site as whole, meaning a retrofit to the existing structure along with the addition of new buildings. $109M would be enough to build multiple buildings.
trtcttc
Active Member
"The City of Calgary is in the preliminary stages of investigating potential plans for the rest of the site," read the statement.
The city undertakes massive changes to housing reforms in the name of the housing crisis, yet their internal departments are only in the preliminary stages of investigating a site they probably knew would be closed over 5 years ago. Plans should've been done when the last tenant moved out.
The city undertakes massive changes to housing reforms in the name of the housing crisis, yet their internal departments are only in the preliminary stages of investigating a site they probably knew would be closed over 5 years ago. Plans should've been done when the last tenant moved out.
Albertasaurus
Active Member
So it appears they are renovating rather than tearing down the building, which is a bit of a surprise. I had heard that the building had a massive infestation problem and was considered beyond its useful life. Hopefully this means they can get the building reopened a lot quicker than if they tore it down and built new.
But I agree that CHC needs to move a lot quicker to address this housing crisis. They have a site north of St. Joseph's church in Mt Pleasant for 16 units that has been in the work for years and still hasn't broken ground. In a city growing by roughly 6% a year we need to be able to build a lot more units a lot more quickly.
But I agree that CHC needs to move a lot quicker to address this housing crisis. They have a site north of St. Joseph's church in Mt Pleasant for 16 units that has been in the work for years and still hasn't broken ground. In a city growing by roughly 6% a year we need to be able to build a lot more units a lot more quickly.
gsunnyg
Senior Member
Honestly, I'd rather see this thing torn down and the land reutilized more efficiently.
Seeing that the parcel is large, isn't there any way the City could divide up the parcel even more, sell off most of the divided land, and use the funds to subsidize a new taller tower on maybe a small corner space of the land? Just a thought.
Seeing that the parcel is large, isn't there any way the City could divide up the parcel even more, sell off most of the divided land, and use the funds to subsidize a new taller tower on maybe a small corner space of the land? Just a thought.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
I’m not entirely sure why you can’t just keep an existing concrete tower, refurbish it, and they fill in the rest of the land with another 1,000+ units.
it strikes me as woefully unambitious for such a good location to do anything less.
gsunnyg
Senior Member
Because the buildings are placed awkwardly on the land. I feel like they should break it up in a grid layout to maximize the land's potential. Perhaps allow for retail units. Basically, a proper redevelopment of the land for the 21st century.