Hamilton 325 James Street North | 45.7m | 12s | Core Urban Inc. | Lintack Architects

[camp_tor]

Front Page News!!
Front page of the print edition and electronic edition of the Hamilton Spectator, but strangely not on their web page. Here is the full article.

The Hamilton Spectator

The Hamilton Spectator

thespec.pressreader.com

For those that can't access the electronic edition, there is not much that we don't know except
“It’s an opportunity to really do something stylistic that you’ll see from the street... [and] 325 James, its three-storey companion that dates to 1910...will be a standalone building on the redeveloped site. The project calls for 127 rental units at market and below-market rates, but not subsidized.", Kulakowsky said. "We want it to be a building that can house many walks of life in Hamilton, which I think pays homage to the history of that site.... [It] will also feature about 13,000 square feet of commercial space, to which Core Urban aims to draw smaller retailers, including a grocery store."

 

[BCTed]

Some of the summary headlines on thespec.com mention "Big change and King and James"...

 

[Chris R.]

I also got another email from the planner group where they clarified their earlier email:

I can confirm that we did in fact make a substantive change to the placement and scale of the tower portion of the building (Floors 5 – 12) as the initial building had zero separation along the west boundary, adjoining the lower rise development to the west along Barton Street.

In direct response to the feedback from City staff and the Design Review Panel the tower placement was shifted away from the west lot line to provide an appropriate transition in scale from the existing development to the west. The separation is increased to 6.0 metres to the building face with minor projections for open balconies, an appropriate response to the feedback form the Panel.

 

[Chris R.]

Doing a bit of digging on the James St zoning, it seems this property is zoned for 6 storeys with the ability to go to 12 assuming it meets various conditions. I expect this to be approved in it's current state quite quickly. The meeting seems to be more of an attempt to correspond with the local neighbourhood and ask if there are reasonable expectations to have the community feel involved. I don't expect any slowdowns since it's zoned for 12 storeys and they're not going to reduce the height.

 

[Chris R.]

Attended the informal information session tonight. Mostly the same information that has been shared before. The top portion has been pushed slightly into the east reducing the unit count. The first floor parking space has been lowered to allow a turn around space. Not much else for us nerds.

Speaking to Steve, he did say he's hoping to get something similar to the Greystone Market style grocer here, but it's a ways off still. He said they hope to start this year and expect construction to take 18 months.

Site tonight: