MJC
New Member
@Surrealplaces Milner's (streetview) floorplate above the podium level is 80'x210'. You have 30' from the core (width) and the heights from the core are 40' on one side and 25' on the other side. Really challenging dimensions to reallocate. My rough look at it was 60-65% efficiency per floor. But the plans look really awkward. You are a little too stubby with 30' from the core (by my understanding) as you need to put in a hallway so you end up with awkward 25' deep units (seen in ~520 sf sizes).
It's a problem for someone who wants to go ground-up on the building, most likely and deal with the asbestos problem. I read the ESA and it's ugly (full floor abatements). So conversion could be a serious nightmare.
My wingnut idea for office space conversion downtown is actually conversion to automated parkade with activated ground floor retail. I'm not thinking a ton a buildings, like one or two C-, 50,000-80,000 SF buildings.
I talked to a structural engineer buddy of mine and it is theoretically possible, I got the idea reading Canadian Parking Association article here:
I haven't been living in a cave, I'm aware of driverless cars
, my reasoning for the demand of this is:
It's a problem for someone who wants to go ground-up on the building, most likely and deal with the asbestos problem. I read the ESA and it's ugly (full floor abatements). So conversion could be a serious nightmare.
My wingnut idea for office space conversion downtown is actually conversion to automated parkade with activated ground floor retail. I'm not thinking a ton a buildings, like one or two C-, 50,000-80,000 SF buildings.
I talked to a structural engineer buddy of mine and it is theoretically possible, I got the idea reading Canadian Parking Association article here:
Load capacity for parking structures is relatively light compared to other uses – it is only 2.4 kPa compared to 2.4 kPa (live load) plus 1.0 kPa (partitions) for an office building, and a minimum of 4.8 kPa for retail structures. This is where these structures struggle to be easily adapted for other uses.
I haven't been living in a cave, I'm aware of driverless cars
, my reasoning for the demand of this is:- improve the urban realm by reducing circulation downtown
- drastic efficiency improvements (cars per SF)
- Calgary has the 2nd highest parking in North America, if it doesn't pencil here it won't pencil anywhere (there are hundreds of automatic garages in Europe and overseas)
- Parkades don't have to look like parkades and can activate the street (ULI)
- In terms of some basic transportation economics, cars and roads are likely to remain the most effective means to move people in Calgary for some time. C Train helps but at $50 - $200 million per km, it will be a slog. I like gondolas in some locations, but it's still in the $20 - $50 million per km range. Reality is that we are not going to stop treating roads and road infrastructure as a bundled good or start paying people who bike or take public transportation.
- ~75-80% of Calgary grow is still going to suburbs, no serious political will for this to change. Developers are not at a point where they can afford to put down track for C Train or other permanent public transportation other than a bus sign (hope I'm wrong here)
- Driverless cars will create four rushhours per day, elevating peak hour demand (rush automatic cars in and out in both morning and evening)
