ZEBuilder

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This is a project that was recently submitted for SPA in downtown Kitchener. The site is in an area of downtown that has yet to see any major proposals, the most recent proposal just down the street at 93 Benton is currently at the OLT and it is only 13 floors. Regardless due to the recent Growing Together amendment to the Official Plan and Zoning bylaws this project no longer requires a ZBA/OPA as the site is on a property zoned for unlimited density and height.

JD Developments have owned this property since 2021 when news first broke on the purchase which at the time was the record for Kitchener at 11 million per acre, since then other properties have sold for significantly more with the highest sale being over 25 million per acre.

The first time a proposal was seen by the public was in the Growing Together documents as JD Developments was lobbying for the highest zoning (SGA-4). Since then the SPA has been submitted along with all the related documents, however it isn't possible to get .

The development will contain a total of 505 units throughout the 40 floors, 6 will be 2 brdrm townhomes fronting the heritage listed property at 79 Benton St, the rest of the building will contain 499 units which contains 36 1bdrm units, 372 1 bdrm+den, 76 2bdrm and 15 3bdrm. The site has 4 elevators servicing the 499 units in the tower, there is a 5th dedicated elevator that serves the parking (P3-Level 1 mezzanine.

The project will contain 243 parking spaces which will be in 3 levels of underground parking, with none in the podium, for KW this is extremely uncommon, however this will slowly change because of restrictions related to parking podiums in Growing Together. The reason why KW hasn't had much underground parking is the lack of restrictions in zoning but the other reason is that KW has an extremely high water table due to the soil and hydrogeological conditions of the Waterloo Moraine, I was working on a large unrelated site elsewhere in downtown Kitchener and the water table throughout the site was sitting about 1.8m below the ground surface. This site has the benefit of being on the top of "Cedar Hill" which is one of the highest points locally so they might have less of a water problem then elsewhere, regardless this will be one of the deeper underground parking garages locally.

The project will aslo contain 264 bicycle spaces, 254 are Class A with direct access to the outside via a set of stairs/ramps. The proposal also contains 5352sqft of commercial space fronting Benton.

There is 14,157sqft of outdoor amenity space provided on site, this is split between rooftop amenity space as well as an outdoor amenity area behind the existing church. There is also 11,226sqft of indoor amenity space provided on site. Storage lockers are also provided on site on P3, P2, P1, 2, 3, and 4.

Site Plan:
Screenshot 2024-03-29 112752.png



Render from Church/Benton:
Screenshot 2024-03-29 112412.png


Render, close up of the podium:
Screenshot 2024-03-29 112620.png
 
Odd spot (for now) as far as downtown expansion goes, but I do like the building

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View attachment 594616

It's certainly not an odd place for a tower, that satellite photo is also 6/7 years old at this point so downtown has drastically changed. This project is also only a 5 minute walk if that to both the Frederick and Queen LRT station, sure it's taller then anything else in the area that is public but I can say that there's taller projects (10+ floors taller) in the works very close by and a bunch of smaller infill projects (10-25 floors).

There's a couple of projects in the early stages which aren't public that I'd agree with you on (think 50 floors almost 1km from the nearest LRT station) but this is definitely not a project like that.
 

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