I haven't been down to Galt in a while so in honor of this thread I did a little evening walk to take some photos and see the area now that it's evolved.
It's nice finally seeing something next to the theatre here as the plaza out front felt out of place next to a large parking lot. The overall urban form here is filling in, Grand Ave S is starting to get an urban street wall, albeit with a few holes and not many doors.
But here's where I will drop my negatives before some of the more light hearted stuff. The podium design is so totally brutal and overbearing for no reason, and I'm really only angry at the podium in particular here. I like the towers, but oh boy the podium makes me upset. It's so terribly suburban feeling. While finishes are still coming, the overall podium massing is so laughably bad. I'm not sure if this is specifically the architects fault, but man does it scream incompetency.
There is zero reason for the podium to be so fat, the bottom floor units stick out even more like they aren't meant to be there. These look like a temple idolizing our car dependency where we are too cheap to bury the parking where it counts (especially next to heritage buildings). This is supposed to be a destination but these overbear said destination so hard that it risks ruining it completely.
And that's what worries me. The developer (HIP Developments) had something great to start with, it wouldn't be too hard to make it a mini distillery district style destination. Yet they chose to make parking the aesthetic focus on the towers, so much so that I'm worried this will just end up much more sterile and dead than it was before, even with all the new residents around and landscape improvements. The design of the podium itself is so incredibly incongruent as well. It's not modern, but it's very not traditional either, so what the heck is it trying to be? It's not a contrast, and it's not a mimic on style, it's just a hodgepodge of ideas.
The podium should be wrapped with units to the top with retail at the base, not just crappy townhouses that deaden the street. Where's the friggin retail for your so-called destination? Some of the townhouses are supposed to be for artists, which sound nice in theory, but just should be retail plainly and simply.
*end rant*
If the retail here ends up non functional, I hope the foot traffic makes its way over to downtown galt anyways, because the core streets have lots of potential.
Just a note, the architect on the towers and podium itself is ABA as stated
here. The blame should go more to them in this case.
This project involves the contribution of two architectural firms. ABA Architects is responsible for the design of the residential towers and associated parking podiums.
This project in Hespeler (also in Cambridge) is pretty similar in heritage and with the same architect, but didn't feature the same ugly parking podium (or better put, it's concealed better)
As I said before, Grand Ave S actually has quite a pleasant urban form filling in, alongside the nice repurposed stone warehouse buildings. Along with this project, there's also a little infill on the right of this photo, and the new assisted living apartments hidden on the left side. The parking lot in the middle off frame will ideally be buried to finish this area up.
The long line around this development is actually for the polling booth!
Now as I said before, I actually like the towers, while they are simple it makes for good infill that doesn't try to take the spotlight off the public spaces (unlike the awful podium). It would've been nice if they tried a bit more, but with how bad the podium is I'd rather they keep it simple than fail on anything more complex.
From the riverside trail. It should be mentioned Galt has a lot of hidden history and nice architecture that's underappreciated.
I thought this perspective was also quite neat, as none of the buildings in this photo existed a couple years ago (the smallest one did, but quite abandoned before)
Now from the actual river, it's quite nice to see an urban form take hold somewhere in Cambridge. Funny that the smallest core, Hespeler, has seen more investment until now.
And to finish it off, a shot on the now pedestrian only street in downtown galt. Like I said before, galt has lots of potential, with intimate storefronts and a solid three story street wall. The stone architecture, like in guelph is unique and has lots of depth (and big windows, boy I'd love an apartment with those huge windows). It's really just missing the people to use it.
While this photo was taken on a Monday night, I would hope it not to seem totally empty. There is a real need for staple restaurants here, more draw than there is right now. I'm hoping with the developments on the books right now, slowly Galt will see what Kitchener and Waterloo are seeing, as the investments are already being made with some building upgrades underway (you can see in the photo). But what needs to happen is a focus on pulling the developments towards the core, because the Gaslight district, and other projects won't create significant retail buzz here if it's too far away.
EDIT: another note to my point just above, there is an early proposal at 69 Ainslie Street South next to the bus terminal that is also on the books.
