This building, at least I assume it's this one (might be 6880 Stanley) has a construction price tag of roughly $400M.

 
Last edited:
Correct. But let's say it...was? There's no way in hell anyone is building a 72 storey building with significant commercial components at the bottom and the top for $400M. @GabrielHurl would be better at this, but I'd say you're probably closer to $700M for this as depicted.
 
I mean, it's not getting built, so who cares?

It's not getting built because of the construction price: the value to the customer isn't there. If it cost $100 per sqft to build then there would be hundreds of buildings like that under construction in Niagara Falls today.

The interesting bit, to me at least, are the market forces dictating what is a feasible project in various parts of Ontario and construction cost is a huge component of this.

Also interesting to me is that it's noticeably cheaper to build in Ottawa than Hamilton or (apparently) Niagara Falls. It's not land value, traffic, soil conditions, or a municipal red-tape: materials and labour costs.
 
Last edited:
The labour isn't really cheaper. Tons of guys working in Toronto are coming in from Hamilton and Niagara Falls. And most of the building trades are covered under provincial agreements anyway
 
The labour isn't really cheaper. Tons of guys working in Toronto are coming in from Hamilton and Niagara Falls. And most of the building trades are covered under provincial agreements anyway

input costs are lower outside of Toronto on basically all fronts except materials and labour, but even those are a bit cheaper, from my understanding.

The big "savings" come from lower land, approvals, and especially government costs. Development Charges tend to be a lot lower, especially if you are outside of the inner 905/416.

Hamilton for example has a DC charge of $38,000 for a 2-bed apartment in the central city, versus $56,000 for Toronto. PLUS - Hamilton gives a 40% discount on those fees in the downtown - so the actual comparable is $22,000 vs. $56,000. Hamilton also has as-of-right zoning so the approvals process takes about half as long ($$$$) and historically didn't ask for Section 37 funds (millions of dollars).

Then you get much lower land costs to the tune of probably over a hundred dollars a buildable square foot.

Then you get lower construction costs through reduced development standards - no green standards, no requirements for various things like green roofs, excessive stepbacks, public art, POPs spaces, etc...

The list goes on..

The result is that you can build profitably in Hamilton for probably $800-$900 a foot vs. Toronto where it's closer to $1,400-$1,500 a foot from my understanding. The problem is that even with that discount, there often isn't a massive market of people willing to pay $900 a foot to live in Hamilton, and especially not to live in Niagara Falls where a $700,000, 750sf apartment sells at the same price as a townhouse with 3x the living space, a backyard, and a garage.
 
Last edited:
I'll grant that where you do save on labour isn't so much on the rate being paid out to workers, but on all of the extra headaches that come with trying to do anything in the city where staging room is a constant battle, you're struggling to move materials, getting access to the work involves acrobatics, and you have all the extra bother of pedestrians and neighbours and traffic

The workers are paid similarly, but have very, very different site conditions to deal with
 
The site, as it is today:

PXL_20240524_123741467~2.jpg
 
Apparently, this person on reddit said there's a new redesign of the project, but Idk if it's true, because I couldn't find it anywhere on Google.

Do you think there is, or there isn't?
1000031049.jpg
 

Back
Top